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THE BIOGRAPHICAL EDITION 


OF THE WORKS OF 


ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 


Peo LH: SEAS 


THE BIOGRAPHICAL EDITION 
OF STEVENSON’S WORKS 


NOVELS AND ROMANCES 
TREASURE ISLAND 
PRINCE OTTO 
KIDNAPPED 
THE BLACK ARROW 
THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE 
THE WRONG BOX 
THE WRECKER 
DAVID BALFOUR 
THE EBB-TIDE 
WEIR OF HERMISTON 


ST. IVES 
SHORTER STORIES 
NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS 
THE DYNAMITER 
THE MERRY MEN, containtnug DR. JEKYLL 
AND MR. HYDE 
ISLAND NIGHTS’ ENTERTAINMENTS 


ESSAYS, TRAVELS & SKETCHES 


AN INLAND VOYAGE 

TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 

VIRGINIBUS PUERISQUE 

FAMILIAR STUDIES 

THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT, containing THE 
SILVERADO SQUATTERS 

MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS 

IN THE SOUTH SEAS 

ACROSS THE PLAINS 

ESSAYS OF TRAVEL AND IN THE ART OF 
WRITING 

LAY MORALS AND OTHER PAPERS 


POEMS 
POEMS AND BALLADS 


THE LETTERS OF ROBERT LOUIS 
STEVENSON. 4 vols. 

THE LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
By Graham Balfour. Abridged Edition in one volume 


Thirty-one volumes. Sold singly or in sets 
CLOTH, 12mo Live LEATHER, 16mo 


CHARLES SCRIBNER’S Sons, NEW YORK 





BIOGRAPHICAL EDITION 


IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


BEING 


AN ACCOUNT OF EXPERIENCES AND OBSERVA: 
TIONS IN THE MARQUESAS, PAUMOTUS AND 
GILBERT ISLANDS IN THE COURSE OF 
TWO CRUISES, ON THE YACHT 
«CASCO” (1888) AND THE 
SCHOONER “EQUATOR” 


(1889) 


BY 





~~ ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 


NEW YORK 


CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 
1923 


CopyricHtT, 1896, BY 
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 





Printed in the United States of America 








EDITORIAL NOTE 


THE following chapters, printed in book form for the first time in 
1896, are selected from a series which was first published partially 
in Black and White (February to December, 1891), and fully in the 
New York Sux during the same period. 

The voyages which supplied the occasion and the material for 
the work were three in number, viz.: one of seven months (June, 
1888, to January, 1889), in the yacht Casco, from San Francisco to 
the Marquesas, the Paumotus, Tahiti, and thence northwards to 
Hawaii; a second (June to December, 1889), in the trading schooner 
Equator, from Honolulu, the Hawaiian capital (where the author 
had stayed in the interval), to the Gilberts and thence to Samoa; 
nd a third (April to September, 1890), in the trading steamer, Janet 
set out from Sydney and followed a very devious 
rse, extending as far as from Penrhyn in the Eastern to the Mar- 
hall Islands in the Western Pacific. The course of these several 
- voyages can easily be traced on the accompanying map, where each 
2 is marked by a different kind of red line. 

2 Before setting out on his Pacific travels, the author had contracted 
to write an account of them in the form of letters for serial publica- 
s~ tion. The plan by and by changed in his mind into that of a book 
’ partly of travel and partly of research, which should combine the 
“results of much careful observation and inquiry upon matters of 

island history, custom, belief, and tradition, with some account of 






™ his own experiences and those of his traveling companions. Under 
“ the nominal title of Zetters be began to compose the chapters of such 

_~a book on board the Janet Nicoll, and continued the task during the 
) first ten months of his residence in Samoa (October, 1890, to July, 
5 1891). These chapters were sent home in fulfilment of his promise; 


but before the serial publication had gone very far, he realized that 
the personal and the impersonal elements were not very successfully 
/) combined, nor in proportions that contented his readers, Accord: 


\ 


vi EDITORIAL NOTE 


ingly he abandoned for the time being the idea of republishing the 
chapters in book form; but when the scheme of the Edinburgh 
Edition of his works was maturing, he desired that a selection should 
be made from them, and should appear as a volume of that edition. 
That desire was carried out. 

It must be understood that a considerable portion of the author’s 
voyages above mentioned is not recorded at all in the following 
pages. Of one of its most attractive episodes, the visit to Tahiti, 
no account was written; while of his experiences in Hawaii he only 
narrated a visit to the Kona coast and to the leper settlement at 
Molokai. These chapters did not come out at all to his own satis- 
faction, and have accordingly been omitted. So have some others 
describing a visit to Penrhyn in the course of his third voyage. 

Of the four sections here given, each is complete in itself. The 
first deals with the Marquesas (the scene of Hermann Melville’s 
Typee), the second with the Paumotus —the former a volcanic and 
mountainous group, the latter a group of atolls or low coral islands, 
both in the Eastern Pacific, and both under the protectorate of 
France. The last two sections describe the author’s residence in 
the Gilberts, a remote and little known coral group in the Western 
Pacific, which at the time of his visit was under independent native 
government, but has since been annexed by Great Britains This is; 
the part of his work with which the author was himself best satis- 
fied, and it derives additional interest from describing a state an 
manners and government which has now passed away. 





CONTENTS 


Part I 
THE MARQUESAS 
CHAPTER Pace 
POSTER NT. IU ANDEALL) 9:06. 00) (bn! Sola: aii ean 3 
EME AMANG ET RIENDS 908 60d ee dl) Goo Mints alee ED 
ee AEP A ROON id (So 26a Spins 0 ah) eh wide a! emcee 
EIR AT IT Siig Pe igh ehiiers air liey ).ot.ce Aatir er te eh aS 
PL BCPORULCATION “otto es «6. 6 | ek ePaper ee Mas 
eee MIE PS AND LAPUS oy. ce) estes ef a) el taly ce te: bape 
a Se ORE Se a acre vel RL 2 
eens te OORT OE TENOR Wie a) 0) ans cee pao genine el gO 
Pepe UM ror. OF TEMOANA jo). o400)j0 ile hunt het te) #) i OO 
X A PORTRAIT AND ASTORY .. . sae ge!) SOT 
XI Lone-Pig — A CANNIBAL HIGH Price HOCH aN C89 4 
Rie ol ee aeroORy OF A PLANTATION: 0. decisis eh. setiie  T2I 
XIII CHARACTERS .. . N09 Goalie OR AG TAN aay fe, ¥ | 
XIV In A CANNIBAL Varney Wile ears niet oes ws hig 8 ae a 
Dove Sue TP wWOICHIEFS OF ATUONA © 1.) (6) io ee. he 183 
Part I] 


THE PAUMOTUS 
I THE DANGEROUS ARCHIPELAGO — ATOLLS ATA 


BES TAN OE.) dh a She Ua dat Vicia) tint ab Oe 

II FAKARAVA: AN Regne. AT ANG Bate PAA Raa aed gg, 

bites TOUSE TO LET IN/A LOW ISLAND: 2. .::. , 189 
IV TRAITS AND SECTS IN THE PAUMOTUS .... 2o0I 
Men EAUMOUTUAN PUNERAL: ios ee fee ee S14 


PPP AVEVART) STORIES 46060) 8 ele et le 22] 


Viil CONTENTS 


Part III 
THE GILBERTS 
CHAPTER PAGE 
Le SBUTARITARI | isi) 00 os) Couto. slows ie tale, ite ee ge 
Il THE Hour BROTHERS 2 eycs ve sete yen a ae 
IIL .AROUND OUR FIOUSE 5 eee rea ree 
TVA TALE OF A: TAPU! js))00%\" 6 90°). ven en 


VA TALE OF A-TARU (Continued). 3 3. eee 
V1 THE FIVE’DAYS' FESTIVAL < » % /sils) st peunaeme 
VII HusBAND' AND WIFE... 5 3 ¢) 0) «| wee 


Part IV 


THE GILBERTS — APEMAMA 
I THE KING OF APEMAMA: THE ROYAL TRADER 329 
II THE KING OF APEMAMA: FOUNDATION OF 


EQUATORDOWN) \s “Je; (eta a) 6 , 340 

III THE KING oF APEMAMA: THE Pecwen OF 
MANY WOMEN. . . oo peas 351 

IV THE KING OF APEMAMA: mOvAOR Towed, AND 
THE PALACE 5) ) 0) ) 0/00) 0 eco he: er 
V KING AND COMMONS. .. . ods Pee 
VI THE KING OF APEMAMA: Dene wore ad Poop, ese ena 
VII THE KING OF APEMAMA “. '.. . “c 9.05 gee 


Mar. « «ce 6 0. :0 |e ies 6476 w Olek okebL tn eae 


PART I: THE MARQUESAS 





A MAP OF THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS 





Nationality to which these 



















Group. Islands belong. Date of Acquisition. 
Fiji Islands. British. | 1874 | 
Solomon Islands. British and German. | 1886 | 
Cook or Hervey Islands. | British. 1888 
Gilbert Islands. British. 1892 
Ellice Islands. British. 1892 
Phoenix Islands. British. ! 1889 
Tokelau or UnionIslands| British. / 1889 
Manihiki. British. 1889 
New Hebrides. Native. Regulated bya | 1887 
mixed commission of | 
British and French | 
naval officers. 
Society Islands. French. 1887 
Marquesas Islands. French. 1842 
Paumotu Islands. French. 1842 
Loyalty Islands. French. 1864 
New Caledonia. French. 1853 
Marshall Islands. German. 1886 
Sandwich Islands. Independent. Republic proclaimed 
: ‘ July, 1894. 
Samoa. Independent. Subject} Berlin Samoan Con- 
to joint British, Ger- ference, 1889. 
He at Og ala man, and American 
control. 
Tonga or Friendly Independent. 
Islands. 


ae ree 





A MAP TO ILLUSTRATE R. L. STEVE 


170 1380 176 
Two Brothe 

















Tropic of Cancer 


Gaspar Rico 


10 
Pom 
Arecifes 






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& 
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Malanash Tr 








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San iy ‘ * 
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\ Christoval / pare usenge a 
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of 















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NEW Be Sa ( Yasawa Group .¢°"¥ cpExploring _ TONGA OR 
Shepherd 4® Viti Levu : FRIENDLY Is, 


HEBRIDES 


Erromango P ve 
Astrolube 4 Kandavu T3274" 
ew Wf ; 






Nakudidfie 
Tongatabu?Eua ! 


Eye 





Longitude East of Greenwich 180 Loagaae West of Greenwich 





HREE CRUISES IN THE SOUTH SEAS. 





SKETOH MAP OF 

SOUTH SEA ISLANDS 
and their 

relative position. 










Nuhany y 


- “ 
AWAIIAN IS. no Bet ate flConeve___{Sandwdob 
(SAND WICH) 


Fanning E 





Sporades 


aChristmas I, 





Malden Ie 












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a 
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(Tongarewa) ; § “Hiva-oa 













warrow I. 












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hed Tubai. _ port ; 
+ Raiatead fone 







**OR LOW 





ARCHIPELAGO 


aise Gioucet ter 


“sy °Tureia 
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e 












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150 





L. L. POATES, N. Y. 









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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 













TY Ae ee tendo Ie 
HA Wate 





“i 
[luzzy 


PART I: THE MARQUESAS 


CHAPTER I 


- AN ISLAND LANDFALL 


| NOR nearly ten years my health had been 


declining; and for some while before I 

set forth upon my voyage; I believed I was 
come to the afterpiece of life, and had only the 
nurse and undertaker to expect. It was suggested 
that I should try the South Seas; and I was not 
unwilling to visit like a ghost, and be carried like 
a bale, among scenes that had attracted me in youth 
and health. I chartered accordingly Dr. Merrit’s 
schooner yacht, the Casco, seventy-four tons regis- 
ter; sailed from San Francisco towards the end of 
June, 1888, visited the Eastern islands, and was left 
early the next year at Honolulu. Hence, lacking 
courage to return to my old life of the house and 
sick-room, I set forth to leeward in a trading 
schooner, the Equator, of a little over seventy tons, 
spent four months among the atolls (low coral 
islands) of the Gilbert group, and reached Samoa 
towards the close of ’89. By that time gratitude 
and habit were beginning to attach me to the 
islands; I had gained a competency of strength; I 
had made friends; I had learned new interests; the 


& 


ee 


4 IN THE SOUTH SEAes 


time of my voyages had passed like days in fairy- 
land; and I decided to remain. I began to prepare 
these pages at sea, on a third cruise, in the trading 
steamer Janet Nicoll. If more days are granted me, 
they shall be passed where I have found life most , 
pleasant and man most interesting; the axes of- 
my black boys are already clearing the foundations 
of my future house; and I must learn to address 
readers from the uttermost parts of the sea. 

That I should thus have reversed the verdict of 
Lord Tennyson’s hero is less eccentric than appears. 
Few men who come to the islands leave them;- they 
grow grey where they alighted; the palm shades 
and the trade-wind fans them till they die, perhaps 
cherishing to the last the fancy of a visit home, 
which is rarely made, more rarely enjoyed, and yet 
more rarely repeated. No part of the world exerts 
the same attractive power upon the visitor, and the 
task before me is to communicate to fireside travel- 
lers some sense of its seduction, and to describe the 
life, at sea and ashore, of many hundred thousand 
persons, some of our own blood and language, all 
our contemporaries, and yet as remote in thought 
and habit as Rob Roy or Barbarossa, the Apostles 
or the Cesars. © ra 

The first experience can never be repeated. The 
first love, the first sunrise, the first South Sea 
island, are memories apart, and touched a virginity — 
of sense. On the 28th of July, 1888, the moon was 
an hour down by four in the morning. In the east 
a radiating centre of brightness told of the day; 
and beneath, on the skyline, the morning bank was 


THE MARQUESAS F 


already building, black as ink. We have all read 
of the swiftness of the day’s coming and departure 
in low latitudes; it is a point on which the sci- 
entific and sentimental tourist are at one, and has 
inspired some tasteful poetry. The period certainly 
varies with the season; but here is one case exactly 
noted. Although the dawn was thus preparing by 
four, the sun was not up till six; and it was half- 
past five before we could distinguish our expected 
islands from the clouds on the horizon. Eight 
degrees south, and the day two hours a-coming. 
The interval was: passed on deck in the silence of 
expectation, the customary thrill of landfall height- 
ened by the strangeness of the shores that we were 
then approaching. Slowly they took shape in the 
attenuating darkness. Ua-huna, piling up to a 
truncated summit, appeared the first upon the star- 
board bow; almost abeam arose our destination, 
Nuka-hiva, whelmed in cloud; and betwixt and to 
the southward, the first rays of the sun displayed 
the needles of Ua-pu. These pricked about the line 
of the horizon; like the pinnacles of some ornate 
and monstrous church, they stood there, in the 
sparkling brightness of the morning, the fit sign- 
board of a world of wonders. 

Not one soul aboard the Casco had set foot upon 
the islands, or knew, except by accident, one word 
of any of the island tongues; and it was with some- 
thing perhaps of the same anxious pleasure as 
thrilled the bosom of discoverers that we drew 
near these problematic shores. f The land heaved 
up in peaks and rising vales; it fell in cliffs and 


60° IN “TRE: SOC DHS ia 


buttresses; its colour ran through fifty modulations 
in a scale of pearl and rose and olive; and it was 
crowned above by opalescent clouds. |The suffu- 
sion of vague hues deceived the eye; the shadows 
of clouds were confounded with the articulations 
of the mountain; and the isle and its unsubstantial 
canopy rose and shimmered before us like a single 
mass. There was no beacon, no smoke of towns 
to be expected, no plying pilot. Somewhere, in 
that pale phantasmagoria of cliff and cloud, our 
haven lay concealed; and somewhere to the east 
of it— the only sea-mark given —a certain head- 
land, known indifferently as Cape Adam and Eve, 
or Cape Jack and Jane, and distinguished by two 
colossal figures, the gross statuary of nature. 
These we were to find; for these we craned and 
stared, focussed glasses, and wrangled over charts; 
and the sun was overhead and the land close ahead 
before we found them. To a ship approaching, 
like the Casco, from the north, they proved indeed 
the least conspicuous features of a striking coast; 
the surf flying high above its base; strange, aus- 
tere, and feathered mountains rising behind; and 
Jack and Jane, or Adam and Eve, impending like 
a pair of warts above the breakers. 

Thence we bore away along shore. On our port 
beam we might hear the explosions of the surf; a 
few birds flew fishing under the prow; there was 
no other sound or mark of life, whether of man or 
beast, in all that quarter of the island. Winged 
by her own impetus and the dying breeze, the 
Casco skimmed under cliffs, opened out a cove, 


THE MARQUESAS 7 


showed us a beach and some green trees, and 
flitted by again, bowing to the swell. The trees, 
from our distance, might have been hazel; the 
beach might have been in Europe; the mountain 
forms behind modelled in little from the Alps, 
and the forests which clustered on their ramparts 
a growth no more considerable than our Scottish 
heath. Again the cliff yawned, but now with a 
deeper entry; and the Casco, hauling her wind, 
began to slide into the bay of Anaho. The cocoa- 
palm, that giraffe of vegetables, so graceful, so 
ungainly, to the European eye so foreign, was to 
be seen crowding on the beach, and climbing and 
fringing the steep sides of mountains. Rude and 
bare hills embraced the inlet upon either hand; 
it was enclosed to the landward by a bulk of 
shattered mountains. In every crevice of that 
barrier the forest harboured, roosting and nesting 
there like birds about a ruin; and far above, it 
greened and roughened the razor edges of the 
summit. 

Under the eastern shore, our schooner, now be- 
reft of any breeze, continued to creep in: the smart 
creature, when once under way, appearing motive 
in herself. From close aboard arose the bleating 
of young lambs; a bird sang in the hillside; the 
scent of the land and of a hundred fruits or flowers 
flowed forth to meet us; and, presently, a house or 
two appeared, standing high upon the ankles of 
the hills, and one of these ‘surrounded with what 
seemed a garden. These conspicuous habitations, 
that patch of culture, had we but known it, were a 


3 IN) DHE S007 HS 


mark of the passage of whites; and we might have 
approached a hundred islands and not found their 
parallel. It was longer ere we spied the native 
village, standing (in the universal fashion) close 
upon a curve of beach, close under a grove of 
palms; the sea in front growling and whitening 
on a concave arc of reef. For the cocoa-tree and 
the island man are both lovers and neighbours of 
the surf. “ The coral waxes, the palm grows, but 
man departs,” says the sad Tahitian proverb; but 
they are all three, so long as they endure, co- 
haunters of the beach. The mark of anchorage 
was a blow-hole in the rocks, near the south- 
easterly corner of the bay. Punctually to our use, 
the blow-hole spouted; the schooner turned upon 
her heel; the anchor plunged. It was a small 
sound, a great event; my soul “ went down with 
these moorings whence no windlass may extract 
nor any diver fish it up; and I, and some part of 
my ship’s company, were from that hour the bond- 
slaves of the isles of Vivien.” 

Before yet the anchor plunged a canoe was al- 
ready paddling from the hamlet. It contained two 
men: one white, one brown and tattooed across 
the face with bands of blue, both in immaculate 
white European clothes: the resident trader, Mr. 
Regler, and the native chief, Taipi-Kikino. “ Cap- 
tain, is it permitted to come on board?” were:the 
first words we heard among the islands. Canoe 
followed canoe till the ship swarmed with stalwart, 
six-foot men in every stage of undress; some in 
a shirt, some in a loin-cloth, one in a handkerchief 


THE MARQUESAS 9 


imperfectly adjusted; some, and these the more 
considerable, tattooed from head to foot in awful 
patterns; some barbarous and knived; one, who 
sticks in my memory as something bestial, squat- 
ting on his hams in a canoe, sucking an orange 
and spitting it out again to alternate sides with ape- 
like vivacity — all talking, and we could not under- 
stand one word; all trying to trade with us who 
had no thought of trading, or offering us island 
curios at prices palpably absurd. There was no 
word of welcome; no show of civility; no hand 
extended save that of the chief and Mr. Regler. 
As we still continued to refuse the proffered arti- 
cles, complaint ran high and rude; and one, the 
jester of the party, railed upon our meanness amid 
jeering laughter. Amongst other angry pleasant- 
ries — “ Here is a mighty fine ship,” said he, “ to 
have no money on board!”’ I own I was inspired 
with sensible repugnance; even with alarm. The 
ship was manifestly in their power; we had women 
on board; I knew nothing of my guests beyond the 
fact that they were cannibals; the Directory (my 
only guide) was full of timid cautions; and as for 
the trader, whose presence might else have reas- 
sured me, were not whites in the Pacific the usual 
instigators and accomplices of native outrage? 
When he reads this confession, our kind friend, 
Mr. Regler, can afford to smile. 

Later in the day, as I sat writing up my journal, 
the cabin was filled from end to end with Mar- 
quesans: three brown-skinned generations, squatted 
cross-legged upon the floor, and regarding me in 


wm. IN) CHE SOU THs has 


silence with embarrassing eyes. The eyes of all 
Polynesians are large, luminous, and melting; they 
are like the eyes of animals and some Italians. 
A kind of despair came over me, to sit there help- 
less under all these staring orbs, and be thus blocked 
in a corner of my cabin by this speechless crowd: 
and a kind of rage to think they were beyond the 
reach of articulate communication, like furred ani- 
mals, or folk born deaf, or the dwellers of some 
alien planet. 

To cross the Channel is, for a boy of twelve, to 
change heavens; to cross the Atlantic, for a man 
of twenty-four, is hardly to modify his diet. But 
I was now escaped out of the shadow of the Roman 
empire, under whose toppling monuments we were 
all cradled, whose laws and letters are on every 
hand of us, constraining and preventing. 1 was 
now to see what men might be whose fathers had 
never studied Virgil, had never been conquered by 
Czsar, and never been ruled by the wisdom of 
Gaius or Papinian. By the same step I had jour- 
neyed forth out of that comfortable zone of kin- 
dred languages, where the curse of Babel is so easy 
to be remedied; and my new fellow-creatures sat 
before me dumb like images. Methought, in my 
travels, all- human relation was to be excluded; 
and when I returned home (for in those days I 
still projected my return) I should have but dipped 
into a picture-book without a text. Nay, and I 
even questioned if my travels should be much pro- 
longed; perhaps they were destined to a speedy 
end; perhaps my subsequent friend, Kauanui, 


THE MARQUESAS 11 


whom I remarked there, sitting silent with the 
rest, for a man of some authority, might leap from 
his hams with an ear-splitting signal, the ship be 
carried at a rush, and the ship’s company butch- 
ered for the table. 

There could be nothing more natural than these 
apprehensions, nor anything more groundless. In 
my experience of the islands, I had never again 
so menacing a reception; were I to meet with such 
to-day, I should be more alarmed and tenfold more 
surprised. The majority of Polynesians are easy 
folk to get in touch with, frank, fond of notice, 
greedy of the least affection, like amiable, fawning 
dogs; and even with the Marquesans, so recently 
and so imperfectly redeemed from a blood-boltered 
barbarism, all were to become our intimates, and one, 
at least, was to mourn sincerely our departure. 


CHAPTER II 


MAKING FRIENDS 


HE impediment of tongues was one that 

I particularly overestimated. The lan- 

guages of Polynesia are easy to smatter, 

though hard to speak with elegance. And they are 

extremely similar, so that a person who has a 

tincture of one or two may risk, not without hope. 
an attempt upon the others. 

And again, not only is Polynesian easy to 
smatter, but interpreters abound. Mi*issionaries, 
traders, and broken white folk living on the 
bounty of the natives, are to be found in almost 
every isle and hamlet; and even where these are 
unserviceable, the natives themselves have often 
scraped up a little English, and in the French zone 
(though far less commonly) a little French- 
English, or an efficient pidgin, what is called to 
the westward “ Beach-la-Mar,” comes easy to the 
Polynesian; it is now taught, besides, in the schools 
of Hawaii; and from the multiplicity of British 
ships, and the nearness of the States on the one 
hand and the colonies on the other, it may be 
called, and will almost certainly become, the tongue 
of the Pacific. I will instance a few examples. 


THE MARQUESAS 43 


IT met in Majuro a Marshall Island boy who spoke 
excellent English; this he had learned in the Ger- 
man firm in Jaluit, yet did not speak one word of 
German. I heard from a gendarme who had 
taught school in Rapa-iti that while the children 
had the utmost difficulty or reluctance to learn 
French, they picked up English on the wayside, 
and as if by accident. On one of the most out-of- 
the-way atolls in the Carolines, my friend Mr. 
Benjamin Herd was amazed to find the lads play- 
ing cricket on the beach and talking English; and 
it was in English that the crew of the Janet Nicoll, 
a set of black boys from different Melanesian 
islands, communicated with other natives through- 
out the cruise, transmitted orders, and sometimes 
jested together on the fore-hatch. But what struck 
- me perhaps most of all was a word I heard on the 
veranda of the Tribunal at Noumea. A case had 
just been heard —a trial for infanticide against 
an ape-like native woman; and the audience were 
smoking cigarettes as they awaited the verdict. 
An anxious, amiable French lady, not far from 
tears, was eager for acquittal, and declared she 
would engage the prisoner to be her children’s 
nurse. The bystanders exclaimed at the proposal; 
the woman was a savage, said they, and spoke no 
language. “ Mais, vous savez,’ objected the fair 
sentimentalist ; “ils apprennent st vite l’ Anglais!” 

But to be able to speak to people is not all. And 
in the first stage of my relations with natives I was 
helped by two things. To begin with, I was the 
showman of the Casco. She, her fine lines, tall 


m¢IN OT ERE SO UME Scie 


\ Spars, and snowy decks, the crimson fittings of the 

saloon, and the white, the gilt, and the repeating 
mirrors of the tiny cabin, brought us a hundred 
visitors. The men fathomed out her dimensions 
with their arms, as their fathers fathomed out the 
ships of Cook; the women declared the cabins 
more lovely than a church; bouncing Junos were 
never weary of sitting in the chairs and contem- 
plating in the glass their own bland images; and 
_I have seen one lady strip up her dress, and, with 
cries of wonder and delight, rub herself bare- 
breeched upon the velvet cushions.’ Biscuit, jam, 
and syrup was the entertainment; and as in 
European parlours, the photograph album went 
the round. This sober gallery, their every-day 
costumes and physiognomies, had become trans- 
formed, in three weeks’ sailing, into things 
wonderful and rich and foreign; alien faces, bar- 
baric dresses, they were now beheld and fingered, 
in the swerving cabin, with innocent excitement 
and surprise. Her Majesty was often recognised, 
and I have seen French subjects kiss her photo- 
graph; Captain Speedy —in an Abyssinian war- 
dress, supposed to be the uniform of the British 
army — met with much acceptance; and the effigies 
of Mr. Andrew Lang were admired in the Mar- 
quesas. ‘There is the place for him to go when he 
shall be weary of Middlesex and Homer. 

It was perhaps yet more important that I had 
enjoyed in my youth some knowledge of our Scots 
folk of the Highlands and the Islands. Not much 
beyond a century has passed since these were in 


THE MARQUESAS 1s 


the same convulsive and transitionary state as the 
Marquesans of to-day. In both cases an alien 
authority enforced, the clans disarmed, the chiefs 
deposed, new customs introduced, and chiefly that 
fashion of regarding money as the means and 
object of existence. The commercial age, in each, 
succeeding at a bound to an age of war abroad and 
patriarchal communism at home. In one the cher- 
ished practice of tattooing, in the other a cherished 
costume, proscribed. In each a main luxury cut 
off: beef, driven under cloud of night from Low- 
land pastures, denied to the meat-loving High- 
lander; long-pig, pirated from the next village, to 
the man-eating Kanaka. The grumbling, the secret 
ferment, the fears and resentments, the alarms and 
sudden councils of Marquesan chiefs, reminded 
me continually of the days of Lovat and Struan. 
Hospitality, tact, natural fine manners, and a 
touchy punctilio, are common to both races: com- 
mon to both tongues the trick of dropping medial 
consonants. Here is a table of two wide-spread 
Polynesian words: 


ae p _ Fag Loves _ 
Tahitian FARE AROHA 
New Zealand WHARE 
~. Samoan FALE TALOFA 
Manihiki FALE ALOHA 
Hawaiian » HALE ALOHA ~ 
Marquesan HA’E KAOHA ~ 


The elision of medial consonants, so marked in 
these Marquesan instances, is no less common both: 


1 Where that word is used as a salutation I give that form. 


146 IN THE SOUT H*Ssfa 


in Gaelic and the Lowland Scots. Stranger still 
that prevalent Polynesian sound, the so-callec 
catch, written with an apostrophe, and often o1 
always the gravestone of a perished consonant, is 
to be heard in Scotland to this day. When a Scot 
pronounces water, better, or bottle — wa’er, beer, 
or bo’le — the sound is precisely that of the catch; 
and I think we may go beyond, and say, that if 
such a population could be isolated, and this mis- 
pronunciation should become the rule, it might 
prove the first stage of transition from ¢ to k, 
which is the disease of Polynesian languages. The 
tendency of the Marquesans, however, is to urge 
against consonants, or at least on the very common 
letter 7, a war of mere extermination. A hiatus 
is agreeable to any Polynesian ear; the ear even 
of the stranger soon grows used to these bar- 
baric voids; but only in the Marquesan will 
you find such names as Haaw and Paaaeua, 
when each individual vowel must be separately 
uttered. 

These points of similarity between a South Sea 
people and some of my own folk at home ran 
much in my head in the islands; and not only 
inclined me to view my fresh acquaintances with 
favour, but continually modified my judgment. A 
polite Englishman comes to-day to the Marquesans 
and is amazed to find the men tattooed; polite 
Italians came not long ago to England and found 
_our fathers stained with woad; and when I paid 
the return visit as a little boy, I was highly diverted 
with the backwardness of Italy: so insecure, so 


THE MARQUESAS 17 


much a matter of the day and hour, is the pre- 
eminence of race. It was so that I hit upon a 
means of communication which I recommend to 
travellers. When I desired any detail of savage 
custom, or of superstitious belief, I cast back in 
the story of my fathers, and fished for what I 
wanted with some trait of equal barbarism: 
Michael Scott, Lord Derwentwater’s head, the 
second-sight, the Water Kelpie, — each of these I 
have found to be a killing bait; the black bull’s 
head of Stirling procured me the legend of Rahero; 
and what I knew of the Cluny Macphersons, or 
the Appin Stewarts, enabled me to learn, and 
helped me to understand, about the Tevas of Tahiti. 
The native was no longer ashamed, his sense of 
kinship grew warmer, and his lips were opened. 
It is this sense of kinship that the traveller 
must rouse and share; or he had better content 
himself with travels from the blue bed to the 
brown. And the presence of one Cockney titterer 
will cause a whole party to walk in clouds of 
darkness. 

The hamlet of Anaho stands on a margin of flat 
land between the west of the beach and the spring 
of the impending mountains. A grove of palms, 
perpetually ruffling its green fans, carpets it (as 
for a triumph) with fallen branches, and shades it 
like an arbour. A road runs from end to end 
of the covert among beds of flowers, the milliner’s 
shop of the community; and here and there, in 
the grateful twilight, in an air filled with a diver- ° 
sity of scents, and still within hearing of the surf 

2 


Bae 


i IN We EB: SO OU: WHS eaeaee 


upon the reef, the native houses stand in scattered 
neighbourhood. The same word, as we have seen, 
represents in many tongues of Polynesia, with 
scarce a shade of difference, the abode of man. 
But although the word be the same, the struc- 
ture itself continually varies; and the Marquesan, 
among the most backward and barbarous of 
islanders, was yet the most commodiously lodged. 
The grass huts of Hawaii, the birdcage houses of 
Tahiti, or the open shed, with the crazy Venetian 
blinds, of the polite Samoan — none of these can 
be compared with the Marquesan paepae-hae, or. 
dwelling platform. The paepae is an oblong ter- 
race built without cement of black volcanic stone, 
from twenty to fifty feet in length, raised from 
four to eight feet from the earth, and accessible 
by a broad stair. Along the back of this, and 
coming to about half its width, runs the open front 
of the house, like a covered gallery: the interior 
sometimes neat and almost elegant in its bareness, 
the sleeping-space divided off by an end-long coam- 
ing, some bright raiment perhaps hanging from 
a nail, and a lamp and one of White’s sewing- 
machines the only marks of civilisation. On the 
outside, at one end of the terrace, burns the 
cooking-fire under a shed; at the other there is 
perhaps a pen for pigs; the remainder is the even- 
ing lounge and al fresco banquet-hall of the inhab- 


itants. To some houses water is brought down the 
mountain in bamboo pipes, perforated for the sake 
of sweetness. With the Highland comparison in 


my mind, I was struck to remember the sluttish 


THE MARQUESAS 19 


mounds of turf and stone in which I have sat and 
been entertained in the Hebrides and the North 
‘Islands. Two things, I suppose, explain the con- 
trast. In Scotland wood is rare, and with materials 
so rude as turf and stone the very hope of neatness 
is excluded. And in Scotland it is cold. Shelter 
anda hearth are needs so pressing that a man 
looks not beyond; he is out all day after a 
bare bellyful, and at night when he saith, ‘‘ Aha, 
it is warm!” he has not appetite for more. Or 
if for something else, then something higher; 
a fine school of poetry and song arose in these 
rough shelters, and an air like “ Lochaber no 
more’’ is an evidence of refinement more con- 
vincing, as well as more imperishable, than a 
palace. “4 

To one such dwelling platform a considerable 
troop of relatives and dependents resort. In the 
hour of the dusk, when the fire blazes, and the 
scent of the cooked breadfruit fills the air, and 
perhaps the lamp glints already between the pil- 
lars of the house, you shall behold them silently 
assemble to this meal, men, women, and children; 
and the dogs and pigs frisk together up the terrace 
stairway, switching rival tails. The strangers from 
the ship were soon equally welcome: welcome to 
dip their fingers in the wooden dish, to drink 
cocoa-nuts, to share the circulating pipe, and to 
hear and hold high debate about the misdeeds of 
the French, the Panama Canal, or the geograph- 
ical position of San Francisco and New Yo’ko.* 
In a Highland hamlet, quite out of reach of any 


27 IN THE SOUTH SHAS 


tourist, I have met the same plain and dignified— 
hospitality. 

I have mentioned two facts—the distasteful 
behaviour of our earliest visitors, and the case of 
the lady who rubbed herself upon the cushions — 
which would give a very false opinion of Mar- 
quesan manners. The great majority of Polyne- 
sians are excellently mannered; but the Marquesan 
stands apart, annoying and attractive, wild, shy, 
and refined. If you make him a present he affects 
to forget it, and it must be offered him again at 
his going: a pretty formality I have found no- 
where else. A hint will get rid of any one or any * 
number; they are so fiercely proud and modest; 
while many of the more lovable but blunter 
islanders crowd upon a stranger, and can be no 
more driven off than flies. A slight or an insult 
the Marquesan seems never to forget. JI was one 
day talking by the wayside with my friend Hoka, 
when I perceived his eyes suddenly to flash and 
his stature to swell. A white horseman was com- 
ing down the mountain, and as he passed, and while 
he paused to exchange salutations with myself, 
Hoka was still staring and ruffling like a game- 
cock. It was a Corsican who had years before 
called him cochin sauvage —cocgon chauvage, as 
Hoka mispronounced it. With people so nice and 
so touchy, it was scarce to be supposed that our 
company of greenhorns should not blunder into 
offences. Hoka, on one of his visits, fell suddenly 
“in a brooding silence, and presently after left the 
ship with cold formality. When he took mé back 


THE MARQUESAS 21 


into favour, he adroitly and pointedly explained 
the nature of my offence: I had asked him to sell 
cocoa-nuts; and in Hoka’s view articles of food 
were things that a gentleman should give, not sell; 
or at least that he should not sell to any friend. 
On another occasion I gave my boat’s crew a 
luncheon of chocolate and biscuits. I had sinned, 
I could never learn how, against some point of 
observance; and though I was drily thanked, my 
offerings were left upon the beach. But our worst 
mistake was a slight we put on Toma, Hoka’s 
adopted father, and in his own eyes the rightful 
. chief of Anaho. In the first place, we did not call 
upon him, as perhaps we should, in his fine new 
European house, the only one in the hamlet. In 
the second, when we came ashore upon a visit to 
his rival, Taipi-kikino, it was Toma whom we saw 
standing at the head of the beach, a magnificent 
figure of a man, magnificently tattooed; and it 
was of Toma that we asked our question: “‘ Where 
is the chief?” ‘‘ What chief?” cried Toma, and 
turned his back on the blasphemers. Nor did he 
forgive us. Hoka came and went with us daily; 
but, alone I believe of all the country-side, neither 
Toma nor his wife set foot on board the Casco. 
The temptation resisted it is hard for a European 
to compute. The flying city of Laputa moored for 
a fortnight in St..James’s Park affords but a pale 
figure of the Casco anchored before Anaho; for 
the Londoner has still his change of pleasures, but 
the Marquesan passes to his grave through an . 
unbroken uniformity of days. 


Lae yL N° THE Ss 0 Oi hat eae 


On the afternoon before it was intended we 
should sail, a valedictory party came on board: 
nine of our particular friends equipped with gifts 
and dressed as for a festival. Hoka, the chief 
dancer and singer, the greatest dandy of Anaho, 
and one of the handsomest young fellows in the 
world — sullen, showy, dramatic, light as a feather 
and strong as an ox —it would have been hard, 
on that occasion, to recognise, as he sat there 
stooped and silent, his face heavy and grey. It 
was strange to see the lad so much affected; 
stranger still to recognise in his last gift one of 
the curtos we had refused on the first day, and to 
know our friend, so gaily dressed, so plainly moved 
at our departure, for one of the half-naked crew 
that had besieged and insulted us on our arrival: 
strangest of all, perhaps, to find, in that carved 
handle of a fan, the last of those curiosities of the 
first day which had now all been given to us 
by their possessors — their chief merchandise, for 
which they had sought to ransom us as long as 
we were strangers, which they pressed on us for 
nothing as soon as we were friends. The last visit 
was not long protracted. One after another they 
shook hands and got down into their canoe; when 
Hoka turned his back immediately upon the ship, 
so that we saw his face no more. Taipi, on the 
other hand, remained standing and facing us with 
gracious valedictory gestures; and when Captain 
Otis dipped the ensign, the whole party saluted 
‘ with their hats. This was the farewell; the epi- 
sode of our visit to Anaho was held concluded; 


THE MARQUESAS 23 


and though the Casco remained nearly forty hours 
at her moorings, not one returned on board, and 
I am inclined to think they avoided appearing on 
the beach. This reserve and dignity is the finest 
trait of the Marquesan. 


CHAPTER III 


THE MAROON 


F the beauties of Anaho books might be 
() written. J remember waking about three, 
to find the air temperate and scented. 
The long swell brimmed into the bay, and seemed 
to fill it full and then subside. Gently, deeply, 
and silently the Casco rolled; only at times a block 
piped like a bird. Oceanward, the heaven was 
bright with stars and the sea with their reflections. 
If I looked to that side, I might have sung with 
the Hawaiian poet: 


“ Ua maomao ka lani, ua kahaea luna, 
Ua pipi ka maka o ka hoku.” 
(The heavens were fair, they stretched above, 
Many were the eyes of the stars.) 


And then I turned shoreward, and high squalls 
were overhead; the mountains loomed up black; 
and I could have fancied I had slipped ten thousand 
miles away and was anchored in a Highland loch ; 
that when the day came, it would show pine, and 
heather, and green fern, and roofs of turf sending 
up the smoke of peats; and the alien speech that 
‘should next greet my ears must be Gaelic, not 
Kanaka. 


THE MARQUESAS 25 


And day, when it came, brought other sights 
and thoughts. I have watched the morning break 
in many quarters of the world; it has been cer- 
tainly one of the chief joys of my existence, and 
the dawn that I saw with most emotion shone upon 
the bay of Anaho. The mountains abruptly over- 
hang the port with every variety of surface and of 
inclination, lawn, and cliff, and forest. Not one 
of these but wore its proper tint of saffron, of 
sulphur, of the clove, and of the rose. The lustre 
was like that of satin; on the lighter hues there 
seemed to float an efflorescence; a solemn bloom 
appeared on the more dark. The light itself was 
the ordinary light of morning, colourless and clean; 
and on this ground of jewels, pencilled out the 
least detail of drawing. Meanwhile, around the 
hamlet, under the palms, where the blue shadow 
lingered, the red coals of cocoa husk and the light 
trails of smoke betrayed the awakening business of 
the day; along the beach men and women, lads 
and lasses, were returning from the bath in bright 
raiment, red and blue and green, such as we de- 
lighted to see in the coloured little pictures of our 
childhood; and presently the sun had cleared the 
eastern hill, and the glow of the day was over all. 

The glow continued and increased, the business, 
from the main part, ceased before it had begun. 
‘Twice in the day there was a certain stir of shep- 
herding along the seaward hills. At times a canoe 
went out to fish. At times a woman or two lan- 
guidly filled a basket in the cotton patch. At times’ 
a pipe would sound out of the shadow of a house, 


26 IN THE SOUTH sia 


ringing the changes on its three notes, with an 
effect like Que le jour me dure repeated endlessly. 
Or at times, across a corner of the bay, two natives 
might communicate in the Marquesan manner with 
conventional whistlings. All else was sleep and 
silence. The surf broke and shone around the 
shores; a species of black crane fished in the 
broken water; the black pigs were continually gal- 
loping by on some affair; but the people might 
never have awaked, or they might all be dead. 

‘\My favourite haunt was opposite the hamlet, 
where was a landing in a cove under a lianaed 
cliff. The beach was lined with palms and a tree 
called the purao, something between the fig and 
mulberry in growth, and bearing a flower like a 
great yellow poppy with a maroon heart. In places 
rocks encroached upon the sand; the beach would 
be all submerged; and the surf would bubble 
warmly as high as to my knees, and play with 
cocoa-nut husks as our more homely ocean plays 
with wreck and wrack and bottles. As the reflux 
drew down, marvels of colour and design streamed 
between my feet; which I would grasp at, miss, 
or seize: now to find them what they promised, 
shells to grace a cabinet or be set in gold upon a 
lady’s finger; now to catch only maya of coloured 
sand, pounded fragments and pebbles, that, as soon 
as they were dry, became as dull and homely as the 
flints upon a garden path.} I have toiled at this 
childish pleasure for hours in the strong sun, con- 
“scious of my incurable ignorance; but too keenly 
pleased to be ashamed. Meanwhile, the blackbird 


THE MARQUESAS a7 


(or his tropical understudy ) would be fluting in 
the thickets overhead. 

A little further, in the turn of the bay, a stream- 
let trickled in the bottom of a den, thence spilling 
down a stair of rock into the sea. The draught of 
air drew down under the foliage in the very bot- 
tom of the den, which was a perfect arbour for 
coolness. In front it stood open on the blue bay 
and the Casco lying there under her awning and 
her cheerful colours. Overhead was a thatch of 
puraos, and over these again palms brandished 
their bright fans, as I have seen a conjurer make 
himself a halo out of naked swords. For in this 
spot, over a neck of low land at the foot of the 
mountains, the trade-wind streams into Anaho Bay 
in a flood of almost constant volume and velocity, 
and of a heavenly coolness. 

It chanced one day that I was ashore in the cove 
with Mrs. Stevenson and the ship’s cook. Except 
for the Casco lying outside, and a crane or two, 
and the ever-busy wind and sea, the face of the 
world was of a prehistoric emptiness; life appeared 
to stand stock-still, and the sense of isolation was 
profound and refreshing. On a sudden, the trade- 
wind, coming in a gust over the isthmus, struck 
and scattered the fans of the palms above the den; 
and, behold! in two of the tops there sat a native, 
motionless as an idol and watching us, you would 
have said, without a wink. The next moment 
the tree closed, and the glimpse was gone. ‘This 
discovery of human presences latent overhead in’ 
a place where we had supposed ourselves alone, the 


2° IN THE SOUTH Sas 


immobility of our tree-top spies, and the thought 
that perhaps at all hours we were similarly super- 
vised, struck us with a chill. Talk languished on 
the beach. As for the cook (whose conscience was 
not clear), he never afterwards set foot on shore, 
and twice, when the Casco appeared to be driving 
on the rocks, it was amusing to observe that man’s 
alacrity; death, he was persuaded, awaiting him 
upon the beach. It was more than a year later, 
in the Gilberts, that the explanation dawned upon 
myself. The natives were drawing palm-tree wine, 
a thing forbidden by law; and when the wind thus 
suddenly revealed them, they were doubtless more 
troubled than ourselves. 

At the top of the den there dwelt an old, melan- 
choly, grizzled man of the name of Tari (Charlie) 
Coffin. He was a native of Oahu, in the Sand- 
wich Islands; and had gone to sea in his youth 
in the American whalers; a circumstance to which 
he owed his name, his English, his down-east 
twang, and the misfortune of his innocent life. 
For one captain, sailing out of New Bedford, car- 
ried him to Nuka-hiva and marooned him there 
among the cannibals. The motive for this act 
was inconceivably small; poor Tari’s wages, which 
were thus economised, would scarce have shook 
the credit of the New Bedford owners. And the 
act itself was simply murder. Tari’s life must 
have hung in the beginning by a hair. In the 
grief and terror of that time, it is not unlikely 
‘he went mad, an infirmity to which he was still 
liable; or perhaps a child may have taken a fancy 


THE MARQUESAS 29 


to him and ordained him to be spared. He escaped 
at least alive, married in the island, and when I 
knew him was a widower with a married son 
and a granddaughter. But the thought of Oahu 
haunted him; its praise was for ever on his lips; 
he beheld it, looking back, as a place of ceaseless 
feasting, song, and dance; and in his dreams I 
dare say he revisits it with joy. I wonder what 
he would think if he could be carried there in- 
deed, and see the modern town of Honolulu brisk 
with traffic, and the palace with its guards, and 
the great hotel, and Mr. Berger’s band with their 
uniforms and outlandish instruments; or what he 
would think to see the brown faces grown so few 
and the white so many; and his father’s land 
sold for planting sugar, and his father’s house 
quite perished, or perhaps the last of them struck 
leprous and immured between the surf and the 
cliffs on Molokai. So simply, even in South Sea 
Islands, and so sadly, the changes come. 

Tari was poor, and poorly lodged. His house 
was a wooden frame, run up by Europeans; it 
was indeed his official residence, for Tari was the 
shepherd of the promontory sheep. I can give a 
perfect inventory of its contents: three kegs, a 
tin biscuit-box, an iron sauce-pan, several cocoa- 
shell cups, a lantern, and three bottles, probably 
containing oil; while the clothes of the family 
and a few mats were thrown across the open 
tafters. Upon my first meeting with this exile 
he had conceived for me one of the baseless island 
friendships, had given me nuts to drink, and 


30 IN THE SOUTLH eS. : 


carried me up the den “to see my house” —the 
only entertainment that he had to offer. He liked 
the ‘‘ Amelican,’ he said, and the “ Inglisman,” 
but the ‘‘ Flessman”’ was his abhorrence; and he 
was careful to explain that if he had thought us 
““ Fless,’ we should have had none of his nuts, 
and never a sight of his house. His distaste for 
the French I can partly understand, but not at all 
his toleration of the Anglo-Saxon. The next day 
he brought me a pig, and some days later one of 
our party going ashore found him in act to bring 
a second. We were still strange to the islands; 
we were pained by the poor man’s generosity, 
which he could ill afford; and by a natural enough 
but quite unpardonable blunder, we refused the 
pig. Had Tari been a Marquesan we should have 
seen him no more; being what he was, the most 
mild, long-suffering, melancholy man, he took a 
revenge a hundred times more painful. Scarce had 
the canoe with the nine villagers put off from 
their farewell before the Casco was boarded from 
the other side. It was Tari; coming thus late 
because he had no canoe of his own, and had 
found it hard to borrow one; coming thus soli- 
tary (as indeed we always saw him), because he 
was a stranger in the land, and the dreariest of 
company. The rest of my family basely fled from 
the encounter. JI must receive our injured friend 
alone; and the interview must have lasted hard 
upon an hour, for he was loath to tear himself 
away. “You go’way. I see you no more —no, 
sir!’’ he lamented; and then looking about him 


THE MARQUESAS 31 


with rueful admiration, “ This goodee ship! — no,. 
sir! — goodee ship!”’ he would exclaim: the “ no, 
sir,’ thrown out sharply through the nose upon a 
rising inflection, an echo from New Bedford and 
the fallacious whaler. From these expressions of 
grief and praise, he would return continually to 
the case of the rejected pig. “I like give plesent 
all the same you,” he complained; “‘ only got pig: 
you no take him!” he was a poor man; he had 
no choice of gifts; he had only a pig, he re- 
peated; and I had refused it. I have rarely been 
more wretched than to see him sitting there, so 
old, so grey, so poor, so hardly fortuned, of so 
rueful a countenance, and to appreciate, with grow- 
ing keenness, the affront which I had so innocently 
dealt him; but it was one of those cases in which 
speech is vain. 

Tari’s son was smiling and inert; his daughter- 
in-law, a girl of sixteen, pretty, gentle, and grave, 
more intelligent than most Anaho women, and 
with a fair share of French; his grandchild, a 
‘mite of a creature at the breast. I went up the 
den one day when Tari was from home, and found 
the son making a cotton sack, and madame suck- 
ling mademoiselle. When I had sat down with 
them on the floor, the girl began to question me 
about England; which I tried to describe, piling 
the pan and the cocoa-shells one upon another to 
represent the houses, and explaining, as best I was 
able, and by word and gesture, the over-population, 
the hunger, and the perpetual toil. “ Pas de.coco- 
tiers? pas de popoi?’’ she asked. I told her it 


32. IN’ THE SOU TA Seis 


was too cold, and went through an elaborate per- 
formance, shutting out draughts, and crouching 
over an imaginary fire, to make sure she under- 
stood. But she understood right well; remarked 
it must be bad for the health, and sat awhile 
gravely reflecting on that picture of unwonted 
sorrows. I am sure it roused her pity, for it 
struck in her another thought always uppermost 
in the Marquesan bosom; and she began with a 
smiling sadness, and looking on me out of melan- 
choly eyes, to lament the decease of her own 
people. “Jct pas de Kanaques,” said she; and 
taking the baby from her breast, she held it out 
to me with both her hands. ‘“ Tenez—a little 
baby like this; then dead. All the Kanaques die. 
Then no more.” The smile, and this instancing 
by the girl-mother of her own tiny flesh and 
blood, affected me strangely; they spoke of so 
tranquil a despair. Meanwhile the husband smil- 
ingly made his sack; and the unconscious babe 
struggled to reach a pot of raspberry jam, friend- 
ship’s offering, which I had just brought up the 
den; and in a perspective of centuries | saw their 
case as ours, death coming in like a tide, and the 
day already numbered when there should be no 
more Beretani, and no more of any race what- 
ever, and (what oddly touched me) no more lit- 
erary works and no more readers. 


CHAPTER IV 


DEATH 


HE thought of death, I have said, is 
uppermost in the mind of the Marque- 

san. It would be strange if it were 
otherwise. The race is perhaps the handsomest 
extant. Six feet is about the middle height of 
males; they are strongly muscled, free from fat, 
swift in action, graceful in repose; and the women, 
though fatter and duller, are still comely animals. 
To judge by the eye, there is no race more viable; 
and yet death reaps them with both hands. When 
Bishop Dordillon first came to Tai-o-hae, he reck- 
oned the inhabitants at many thousands; he was 
but newly dead, and in the same bay Stanislao 
Moanatini counted on his fingers eight residual 
natives. Or take the valley of Hapaa, known to 
readers of Herman Melville under the grotesque 
misspelling of Hapar. There are but two writers 
who have touched the South Seas with any genius, 
both Americans: Melville and Charles Warren 
Stoddard; and at the christening of the first and 
greatest, some influential fairy must have been 
neglected: ‘“‘ He shall be able to see,” “ He shall 
be able to tell,’ “‘ He shall be able to charm,” said 

3 


34 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


the friendly godmothers; “ But he shall not be 
able to hear,’ exclaimed the last. The tribe of 
‘Hapaa is said to have numbered some four hun- 
dred, when the small-pox came and reduced them 
by one-fourth. Six months later a woman devel- 
oped tubercular consumption; the disease spread 
like a fire about the valley, and in less than a 
year two survivors, a man and a woman, fled 
from that new-created solitude. A similar Adam 
and Eve may some day wither among new races, 
the tragic residue of Britain. When I first heard 
this story the date staggered me; but I am now 
inclined to think it possible. Early in the year of 
my visit, for example, or late the year before, a 
first case of phthisis appeared in a household of 
seventeen persons, and by the month of August, 
when the tale was told me, one soul survived, and 
that was a boy who had been absent at his school- 
ing. And depopulation works both ways, the doors 
of death being set wide open, and the door of 
birth almost closed. Thus, in the half-year end- 
ing July, 1888, there were twelve deaths and but 
one birth in the district of the Hatiheu. Seven 
or eight more deaths were to be looked for in the 
ordinary course; and M. Aussel, the observant 
gendarme, knew of but one likely birth. At this 
rate it is no matter of surprise if the population 
in that part should have declined in forty years 
from six thousand to less than four hundred; 
which are, once more on the authority of M. 
Aussel, the estimated figures. And the rate of de- 
cline must have been accelerated towards the end. 


THE MARQUESAS 35 


A good way to appreciate the depopulation is 
to go by land from Anaho to Hatiheu on the 
adjacent bay. The road is good travelling, but 
cruelly steep. We seemed scarce to have passed 
the deserted house which stands highest in Anaho 
before we were looking dizzily down upon its 
roof; the Casco well out in the bay, and rolling 
for a wager, shrank visibly; and presently through 
the gap of Tari’s isthmus, Ua-huna was seen to 
hang cloudlike on the horizon. Over the summit, 
where the wind blew really chill, and whistled in 
the reed-like grass, and tossed the grassy fell of 
the pandanus, we stepped suddenly, as through a 
door, into the next vale and bay of Hatiheu. A 
bowl of mountains encloses it upon three sides. 
On the fourth this rampart has been bombarded 
into ruins, runs down to seaward in imminent and 
shattered crags, and presents the one practicable 
breach of the blue bay. The inferior of this ves- 
sel is crowded with lovely and valuable trees, — 
orange, breadfruit, mummy-apple, cocoa, the island 
chestnut, and for weeds, the pine and the banana. 
Four perennial streams water and keep it green; 
and along the dell, first of one, then of another, 
of these, the road, for a considerable distance, de- 
scends into this fortunate valley. The song of the 
waters and the familiar disarray of boulders gave 
us a strong sense of home, which the exotic foli- 
age, the daft-like growth of the pandanus, the 
buttressed trunk of the banyan, the black pigs 
galloping in the bush, and the architecture of the 
native houses dissipated ere it could be enjoyed. 


36 IN THE SOUL See 


The houses on the Hatiheu side begin high up; 
higher yet, the more melancholy spectacle of empty 
paepaes. When a native habitation is deserted, 
the superstructure — pandanus thatch, wattle, un- 
stable tropical timber — speedily rots, and is speed- 
ily scattered by the wind. Only the stones of the 
terrace endure; nor can any ruin, cairn, or stand- 
ing stone, or vitrified fort present a more stern 
appearance of antiquity. We must have passed 
from six to eight of these now houseless plat- 
forms. On the main road of the island, where it 
crosses the valley of Taipi, Mr. Osbourne tells me 
they are to be reckoned by the dozen; and as the 
roads have been made long posterior to their erec- 
tion, perhaps to their desertion, and must simply 
be regarded as lines drawn at random through the 
bush, the forest on either hand must be equally 
filled with these survivals: the gravestones of 
whole families. Such ruins are tapu in the strict- 
est sense; no native must approach them; they 
have become outposts of the kingdom of the grave. 
It might appear a natural and pious custom in the 
hundreds who are left, the rearguard of perished 
thousands, that their feet should leave untrod these 
hearthstones of their fathers. I believe, in fact, 
the custom rests on different and more grim con- 
ceptions. But the house, the grave, and even the 
body of the dead, have been always particularly 
honoured by Marquesans. Until recently the corpse 
was sometimes kept in the family and daily oiled 
and sunned, until, by gradual and revolting stages, 
it dried into a kind of mummy. Offerings are still 


MAE MARQUESAS 37 


laid upon the grave. In Traitor’s Bay, Mr. Os- 
bourne saw a man buy a looking-glass to lay upon 
his son’s. And the sentiment against the desecra- 
tion of tombs, thoughtlessly ruffled in the laying 
down of the new roads, is a chief ingredient in 
the native hatred for the French. 

The Marquesan beholds with dismay the ap- 
proaching extinction of his race. The thought of 
death sits down with him to meat, and rises with 
him from his bed; he lives and breathes under a 
shadow of mortality awful to support; and he is 
so inured to the apprehension that he greets the 
reality with relief. He does not even seek to 
support a disappointment; at an affront, at a 
breach of one of his fleeting and communistic love 
affairs, he seeks an instant refuge in the grave. 
Hanging is now the fashion. I heard of three 
who had hanged themselves in the west end of 
Hiva-oa during the first half of 1888; but though 
this be a common form of suicide in other parts 
of the South Seas, I cannot think it will continue 
popular in the Marquesas. Far more suitable to 
Marquesan sentiment is the old form of poisoning 
with the fruit of the eva, which offers to the na- 
tive suicide a cruel but deliberate death, and gives 
time for those decencies of the last hour, to which 
he attaches such remarkableimportance. The coffin 
can thus be at hand, the pigs killed, the cry of the 
mourners sounding already through the house; and 
then it is, and not before, that the Marquesan is 
conscious of achievement, his life all rounded in, 
his robes (like Cesar’s) adjusted for the final act. 


38 IN THE SOUTH Sas 


Praise not any man till he is dead, said the ancients ; 
envy not any man till you hear the mourners, might 
be the Marquesan parody. The coffin, though of 
late introduction, strangely engages their attention. 
It is to the mature Marquesan what a watch is to 
the European school-boy. For ten years Queen 
Vaekehu had dunned the fathers; at last, but the 
other day, they let her have her will, gave her her 
coffin, and the woman’s soul is at rest. 1 was told 
a droll instance of the force of this preoccupation. 
‘The Polynesians are subject to a disease seemingly 
rather of the will than of the body. I was told 
the Tahitians have a word for it, ertmatua, but 
cannot find it in my dictionary. A gendarme, 
M. Nouveau, has seen men beginning to succumb 
to this insubstantial malady, has routed them from 
their houses, turned them on to do their trick 
upon the roads, and in two days has seen them 
cured. But this other remedy is more original: 
a Marquesan, dying of this discouragement — per- 
haps I should rather say this acquiescence — has 
been known, at the fulfilment of his crowning wish, 
on the mere sight of that desired hermitage, his 
coffin — to revive, recover, shake off the hand of 
death, and be restored for years to his occupa- 
tions — carving tikis (idols), let us say, or braid- 
ing old men’s beards. From all this it may be 
conceived how easily they meet death when it 
approaches naturally. I heard one example, grim 
and picturesque. In the time of the small-pox in 
Hapaa, an old man was seized with the disease; 
he had no thought of recovery; had his grave dug 


THE MARQUESAS 39 


by a wayside, and lived in it for near a fortnight, 
eating, drinking, and smoking with the passers-by, 
talking mostly of his end, and equally unconcerned 
for himself and careless of the friends whom he 
infected. | 

This proneness to suicide, and loose seat in life, 
is not peculiar to the Marquesan. What is pecu- 
liar is the wide-spread depression and acceptance 
of the national end. Pleasures are neglected, the 
dance languishes, the songs are forgotten. It is 
true that some, and perhaps too many, of them 
are proscribed; but many remain, if there were 
spirit to support or to revive them. At the last 
feast of the Bastille, Stanislao Moanatini shed 
tears when he beheld the inanimate performance 
of the dancers. When the people sang for us in 
Anaho, they must apologise for the smallness of 
their repertory. They were only young folk pres- 
ent, they said, and it was only the old that knew 
the songs. The whole body of Marquesan poetry 
and music was being suffered to die out with a 
single dispirited generation. The full import is 
apparent only to one acquainted with other Poly- 
nesian races; who knows how the Samoan coins 
a fresh song for every trifling incident, or who 
has heard (on Penrhyn, for instance) a band of 
little stripling maids from eight to twelve keep 
up their minstrelsy for hours upon a stretch, one 
song following another without pause. In like 
manner, the Marquesan, never industrious, begins 
now to cease altogether from production. The 
exports of the group decline out of all propor- 


4o IN THE $0UTH SEAS 


tion even with the, death-rate of the islanders. 
“The coral waxes, the palm grows, and man de- 
parts,’ says the Marquesan; and he folds his 
hands. And surely this is nature. Fond as it 
may appear, we labour and refrain, not for the 
rewards of any single life, but with a timid eye 
upon the lives and memories of our successors; 
and where no one is to succeed, of his own family, 
or his own tongue, I doubt whether Rothschilds 
would make money or Cato practise virtue. It 
is natural, also, that a temporary stimulus should 
sometimes rouse the Marquesan from his lethargy. 
Over all the landward shore of Anaho cotton runs 
like a wild weed; man or woman, whoever comes 
to pick it, may earn a dollar in the day; yet when 
we arrived, the trader’s storehouse was entirely 
empty; and before we left. it was near full. So 
long as the circus was there, so long as the Casco 
was yet anchored in the bay, it behoved every one 
to make his visit; and to this end every woman 
must have a new dress, and every man a shirt and 
trousers. Never before, in Mr. Regler’s experi- 
ence, had they displayed so much activity. 

In their despondency there is an element of 
dread. The fear of ghosts and of the dark is 
very deeply written in the mind of the ,Polyne- 
sian; not least of the Marquesan. Poor Taipi, 
the chief of Anaho, was condemned to ride to 
Hatiheu on a moonless night. He borrowed a 
lantern, sat a long while nerving himself for the 
adventure, and when he at last departed, wrung 
the Cascos by the hand as for a final separation. 


THE MARQUESAS © 41 


Certain presences, called Vehinehae, frequent and 
make terrible the nocturnal roadside; I was told 
by one they were like so much mist, and as the 
traveller walked into them dispersed and dissi- 
pated; another described them as being shaped 
like men and having eyes like cats; from none 
could I obtain the smallest clearness as to what 
they did, or wherefore they were dreaded. We 
may be sure at least they represent the dead; for 
the dead, in the minds of the islanders, are all- 
pervasive. ‘“‘ When a native says that he is a 
man,’ writes Dr. Coddington, “he means that he 
is a man and not a ghost; not that he is a man 
and not a beast. The intelligent agents of this 
world are to his mind the men who are alive, and 
the ghosts the men who are dead.” Dr. Codding- 
ton speaks of Melanesia; from what I have learned 
his words are equally true of the Polynesian. And 
yet more. Among cannibal Polynesians a dread- 
ful suspicion rests generally on the dead; and the 
Marquesans, the greatest cannibals of all, are scarce 
likely to be free from similar beliefs. I hazard the 
guess that the Vehinehae are the hungry spirits 
of the dead, continuing their life’s business of the 
cannibal ambuscade, and lying everywhere unseen, 
and eager to devour the living. Another super- 
stition I picked up through the troubled medium 
of Tari Coffin’s English. The dead, he told me, 
came and danced by night around the paepae of 
their former family; the family were thereupon 
overcome by some emotion (but whether of pious, 
sorrow or of fear I could not gather), and must — 


42 INV HE SOUTH Se 


“‘make a feast,’ of which fish, pig, and popoi 
were indispensable ingredients. So far this is 
clear enough. But here Tari went on to instance 
the new house of Toma and the house-warming 
feast which was just then in preparation as. in- 
stances in point. Dare we indeed string them 
together, and add thé case of the deserted ruin, 
as though the dead continually besieged the pae- 
paes of the living: were kept at arm’s-length, 
even from the first foundation, only by propitia- 
tory feasts, and so soon as the fire of life went 
out upon the hearth, swarmed back irito posses- 
sion of their ancient seat? 

I speak by guess of these Marquesan super- 
stitions. On the cannibal ghost I shall return 
elsewhere with certainty. And it is enough, for 
the present purpose, to remark that the men of the 
Marquesas, from whatever reason, fear and shrink 
from the presence of ghosts. Conceive how this 
must tell upon the nerves in islands where the 
number of the dead already so far exceeds that 
of the living, and the dead multiply and the living 
dwindle at so swift a rate. Conceive how the 
remnant huddles about the embers of the fire of 
life; even as old Red Indians, deserted on the 
march and in the snow, the kindly tribe all gone, 
the last flame expiring, and the night around 
populous with wolves. 


CHAPTER V 


DEPOPULATION 


VER the whole extent of the South Seas, 
O from one tropic to another, we find traces 
of a by-gone state of over-population, 

when the resources of even a tropical soil were 
taxed, and even the improvident Polynesian trem- 
bled for the future. We may accept some of the 
ideas of Mr. Darwin’s theory of coral islands, and 
suppose a rise of the sea, or the subsidence of 
some former continental area, to have driven into 
‘the tops of the mountains multitudes of refugees. 
Or we may suppose, more soberly, a people of 
sea-rovers, emigrants from a crowded country, to 
strike upon and settle island after island, and as 
time went on to multiply exceedingly in their new 
seats. In either case the end must be the same; 
soon or late it must grow apparent that the crew 
are too numerous, and that famine is at hand. 
The Polynesians met this emergent danger with 
various expedients of activity and prevention. A 
way was found to preserve breadfruit by packing 
it in artificial pits; pits forty feet in depth and 
of proportionate bore are still to be seen, I am 
told, in the Marquesas; and yet even these were 


44 °DN THE SOU TPA ysis 


insufficient for the teeming people, and the annals 
of the past are gloomy with famine and cannibal- 
ism. Among the Hawaiians—a hardier people, 
in a more exacting climate — agriculture was car- 
ried far; the land was irrigated with canals; and 
the fish-ponds of Molokai prove the number and 
diligence of the old inhabitants. Meanwhile, over 
all the island world, abortion and infanticide pre- 
vailed. On coral atolls, where the danger was 
most plainly obvious, these were enforced by law 
and sanctioned by punishment. On Vaitupu, in 
the Ellices, only two children were allowed to a 
couple; on Nukufetau, but one. On the latter 
the punishment was by fine; and it is related that 
the fine was sometimes paid, and the child spared. 

This is characteristic. For no people in the 
world are so fond or so long-suffering with chil- 
dren — children make the mirth and the adornment 
of their homes, serving them for playthings and 
for picture-galleries. “ Happy is the man that has 
his quiver full of them.’’ The stray bastard is 
contended for by rival families; and the natural 
and the adopted children play and grow up to- 
gether undistinguished. The spoiling, and I may 
almost say the deification, of the child, is nowhere 
carried so far as in the Eastern islands; and fur- 
thest, according to my opportunities of observa- 
tion, in the Paumotu group, the so-called Low or 
Dangerous Archipelago. I have seen a Paumo- 
tuan native turn from me with embarrassment and 
disaffection because I suggested that a brat would 
be the better for a beating. It is a daily matter 


THE MARQUESAS — 45 


in some Eastern islands to see a child strike or 
even stone its mother, and the mother, so far from 
punishing, scarce ventures to resist. In some, when 
his child was born, a chief was superseded and re- 
signed his name; as though, like a drone, he had 
then fulfilled the occasion of his being. And in 
some the lightest words of children had the weight 
of oracles. Only the other day, in the Marquesas, 
if a child conceived a distaste to any stranger, I 
am assured the stranger would be slain. And I 
shall have to tell in another place an instance of 
the opposite: how a child in Manihiki having 
taken a fancy to myself, her adoptive parents at 
once accepted the situation and loaded me with 
gifts. 

With such sentiments the necessity for child- 
destruction would not fail to clash, and I believe 
we find the trace of divided feeling in the Tahitian 
brotherhood of Oro. At a certain date a new god 
was added to the Society-Island Olympus, or an 
old one refurbished and made popular. Oro was 
his name, and he may be compared with the Bac- 
chus of the ancients. His zealots sailed from bay 
to bay, and from island to island; they were every- 
where received with feasting; wore fine clothes; 
sang, danced, acted; gave exhibitions of dexterity 
and strength; and were the artists, the acrobats, 
the bards, and the harlots of the group. Their life 
was public and epicurean; their initiation a mys- 
tery; and the highest in the land aspired to join the 
brotherhood. If a couple stood next in line to a 
high-chieftaincy, they were suffered, on grounds of 


46. IN ‘THE SOU TACs tas 


policy, to spare one child; all other children, who 
had a father or a mother in the company of Oro, 
stood condemned from the moment of conception. 
A freemasonry, an agnostic sect, a company of 
artists, its members all under oath to spread un- 
chastity, and all forbidden to leave offspring — I 
do not know how it may appear to others, but to 
me the design seems obvious. Famine menacing 
the islands, and the needful remedy repulsive, it 
was recommended to the native mind by these 
trappings of mystery, pleasure, and parade. ‘This 
is the more probable, and the secret, serious pur- 
pose of the institution appears the more plainly, if 
it be true, that after a certain period of life, the 
obligation of the votary was changed; at first, 
bound to be profligate: afterwards, expected to 
be chaste. | 

Here, then, we have one side of the case. Man- 
eating among kindly men, child-murder among 
child-lovers, industry in a race the most idle, in- 
vention in a race the least progressive, this grim, 
pagan salvation army of the brotherhood of Oro, 
the report of early voyagers, the wide-spread ves- 
tiges of former habitation, and the universal tra- 
dition of the islands, all point to the same fact 
of former crowding and alarm. And to-day we 
are face to face with the reverse. To-day in the 
Marquesas, in the Eight Islands of Hawaii, in 
Mangareva, in Easter Island, we find the same 
race perishing like flies. Why this change? Or, 
grant that the coming of the whites, the change of 
habits, and the introduction of new maladies and 


THE MARQUESAS)7 4 


vices, fully explain the depopulation, why is that 
depopulation not universal? The population of 
Tahiti, after a period of alarming decrease, has 
again become stationary. I hear of a similar result 
among some Maori tribes; in many of the Pau- 
motus a slight increase is to be observed; and 
the Samoans are to-day as healthy and at least as 
fruitful as before the change. Grant that the Tahi- 
tians, the Maoris, and the Paumotuans have be- 
come inured to the new conditions; and what are 
we to make of the Samoans, who have never 
suffered ? 

Those who are acquainted only with a single 
group are apt to be ready with solutions. Thus 
I have heard the mortality of the Maoris attributed 
to their change of residence — from fortified hill- 
tops to the low, marshy vicinity of their planta- 
tions. How plausible! And yet the Marquesans 
are dying out in the same houses where their 
fathers multiplied. Or take opium. The Mar- 
quesas and Hawaii are the two groups the most 
infected with this vice; the population of the one 
is the most civilised, that of the other by far the 
most barbarous, of Polynesians; and they are two 
of those that perish the most rapidly. Here is a 
strong case against opium. But let us take un- 
chastity, and we shall find the Marquesas and 
Hawaii figuring again upon another count. Thus, 
Samoans are the most chaste of Polynesians, and 
they are to this day entirely fertile; Marquesans 
are the most debauched: we have seen how they 
are perishing; Hawaiians are notoriously lax, and 


48 IN THE SOUTH) SEAS 


they begin to be dotted among deserts. So here is 
a case stronger still against unchastity; and here 
also we have a correction to apply. Whatever the 
virtues of the Tahitian, neither friend nor enemy 
dares call him chaste; and yet he seems to have 
outlived the time of danger. One last example: 
syphilis has been plausibly credited with much of 
the sterility. But the Samoans are, by all accounts, 
as fruitful as at first; by some accounts more 
so; and it is not seriously to be argued that the 
Samoans have escaped syphilis. 

These examples show how dangerous it is to 
reason from any particular cause, or even from 
many ina single group. I have in my eye an able 
and amiable pamphlet by the Rev. S. E. Bishop: 
“Why are the Hawaiians Dying Out?” Any one 
interested in the subject ought to read this tract, 
which contains real information; and yet Mr. 
Bishop’s views would have been changed by an 
acquaintance with other groups. Samoa is, for 
the moment, the main and the most instructive ex- 
ception to the rule. The people are the most chaste 
and one of the most temperate of island peoples. 
They have never been tried and depressed with any ». 
grave pestilence. Their clothing has scarce been — % 
tampered with; at the simple and becoming tabard » 
of the girls, Tartuffe, in many another island,. 
would have cried out; for the cool, healthy, and | 
modest lava-lava or kilt, Tartuffe has managed in 
many another island to substitute stifling and in- 
convenient trousers. Lastly, and perhaps chiefly, 
so far from their amusements having been cur- 


/) 


THE MARQUESAS — 4g 


tailed, I think they have been, upon the whole, 
extended. The Polynesian falls easily into de- 
spondency: bereavement, disappointment, the fear 
of novel visitations, the decay or proscription of 
ancient pleasures, easily incline him to be sad; and 
sadness detaches him from life. The melancholy 
of the Hawaiian and the emptiness of his new life 
are striking; and the remark is yet more apposite 
to the Marquesas. In Samoa, on the other hand, 
perpetual song and dance, perpetual games, jour- 
neys, and pleasures, make an animated and a smil- 
ing picture of the island life. And the Samoans 
are to-day the gayest and the best entertained in- 
habitants of our planet. The importance of this 
can scarcely be exaggerated. In a climate and 
upon a soil where a livelihood can be had for the 
stooping, entertainment is a prime necessity. It 
is otherwise with us, where life presents us with 
a daily problem, and there is a serious interest, and 
some of the heat of conflict, in the mere continuing 
to be. So, in certain atolls, where there is no great 
gaiety, but man must bestir himself with some 
vigour for his daily bread, public health and the 
population are maintained; but in the Lotos islands, 
with the decay of pleasures, life itself decays. It 
is from this point of view that we may instance, 
among other causes of depression, the decay of 
war. We have been so long used in Europe to 
that dreary business of war on the great scale, 
trailing epidemics and leaving pestilential corpses 
in its train, that we have almost forgotten its orig; 
inal, the most healthful, if not the most humane, 
4 


so IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


of all field sports — hedge-warfare. From this, as 
well as from the rest of his amusements and in- 
terests, the islander, upon a hundred islands, has 
been recently cut off. And to this, as well as ta 
so many others, the Samoan still makes good a 
special title. 

Upon the whole, the problem seems to me to 
stand thus:— Where there have been fewest 
changes, important or unimportant, salutary or 
hurtful, there the race survives. Where there have 
been most, important or unimportant, salutary or 
hurtful, there it perishes. Each change, however 
small, augments the sum of new conditions to 
which the race has to become inured. There may, 
seem, a priori, no comparison between the change 
from “sour toddy”’ to bad gin, and that from the 
island kilt to a pair of European trousers. Yet I 
am far from persuaded that the one is any more - 
hurtful than the other; and the unaccustomed race 
will sometimes die of pin-pricks. We are here face 
to face with one of the difficulties of the mis- 
sionary. In Polynesian islands he easily obtains 
pre-eminent authority; the king becomes his maire- 
depalais; he can proscribe, he can command; and 
the temptation is ever towards too much. Thus 
(by all accounts) the Catholics in Mangareva, and 
thus (to my own knowledge) the Protestants in 
Hawaii, have rendered life in a more or less degree 
unliveable to their converts. And the mild, uncom- 
plaining creatures (like children in a prison) yawn 
and await death. It is easy to blame the missionary. 
But it is his business to make changes. It is surely 


THE MARQUESAS © 51 


his business, for example, to prevent war; and yet 
I have instanced war itself as one of the elements 
of health. On the other hand, it were, perhaps, 
easy for the missionary to proceed more gently, 
and to regard every change as an affair of weight. 
I take the average missionary; I am sure I do him 
no more than justice when I suppose that he would 
hesitate to bombard a village, even in order to con- 
vert an archipelago. Experience begins to show 
us (at least in Polynesian islands) that change of 
habit is bloodier than a bombardment. 

There is one point, ere I have done, where I 
may go to meet criticism. I have said nothing of 
faulty hygiene, bathing during fevers, mistaken 
treatment of children, native doctoring, or abor- 
tion — all causes frequently adduced. And I have 
said nothing of them because they are conditions 
common to both epochs, and even more efficient 
in the past than in the present. Was it not the 
same with unchastity, it may be asked? Was not 
the Polynesian always unchaste? Doubtless he 
was so always: doubtless he is more so since 
the coming of his remarkably chaste visitors from 
Europe. Take the Hawaiian account of Cook: I 
have no doubt it is entirely fair. Take Krusen- 
stern’s candid, almost innocent, description of a 
Russian man-of-war at the Marquesas; consider 
the disgraceful history of missions in Hawaii it- 
self, where (in the war of lust) the American 
missionaries were once shelled by an English ad- 
venturer, and once raided and mishandled by the 
crew of an American warship; add the practice of 


so ‘IN “DHE SOUTH Sats 


whaling fleets to call at the Marquesas, and carry 
off a complement of women for the cruise; con- 
sider, besides, how the whites were at first regarded 
in the light of demigods, as appears plainly in the 
reception of Cook upon Hawaii; and again, in the 
story of the discovery of Tutuila, when the really 
decent women of Samoa prostituted themselves in 
public to the French; and bear in mind how it 
was the custom of the adventurers, and we may 
almost say the business of the missionaries, to 
deride and infract even the most salutary tapus. 
Here we see every engine of dissolution directed 
at once against a virtue never and nowhere very 
‘strong or popular; and the result, even in the 
most degraded islands, has been further degrada- 
tion. Mr. Lawes, the missionary of Savage Island, 
told me the standard of female chastity had de- 
clined there since the coming of the whites. In 
heathen time, if a girl gave birth to a bastard, her 
father or brother would dash the infant down the 
cliffs; and to-day the scandal would be small. Or 
take the Marquesas. Stanislao Moanatini told me 
that in his own recollection, the young were strictly 
guarded; they were not suffered so much as to 
look upon one another in the street, but passed (so 
my informant put it) like dogs; and the other day 
the whole school-children of Nukahiva and Uapu 
escaped in a body to the woods, and lived there 
for a fortnight in promiscuous liberty. Readers 
of travels may perhaps exclaim at my authority, 
and declare themselves better informed. I should 
prefer the statement of an intelligent native like 


THE MARQUESAS 53 


Stanislao (even if it stood alone, which it is far 
from doing) to the report of the most honest 
traveller. A ship of war comes to a haven, an- 
chors, lands a party, receives and returns a visit, 
and the captain writes a chapter on the manners 
of the island. It is not considered what class is 
mostly seen. Yet we should not be pleased if a 
Lascar foremast hand were to judge England by 
the ladies who parade Ratcliffe Highway, and the 
gentlemen who share with them their hire. Stan- 
islao’s opinion of a decay of virtue even in these 
unvirtuous islands has been supported to me by 
others; his very example, the progress of dissolu- 
tion amongst the young, is adduced by Mr. Bishop 
in Hawaii. And so far as Marquesans are con- 
cerned, we might have hazarded a guess of some 
decline in manners. I do not think that any race 
could ever have prospered or multiplied with such 
as now obtain; I am sure they would have been 
never at the pains to count paternal kinship. It 
is not possible to give details; suffice it that their 
manners appear to be imitated from the dreams of 
ignorant and vicious children, and their debauches 
persevered in until energy, reason, and almost life 
itself are in abeyance. 


CHAPTER VI 


CHIEFS AND TAPUS 


\ ) J E used to admire exceedingly the bland 
and gallant manners of the chief called 
Taipi-Kikino. An elegant guest at 
table, skilled in the use of knife and fork, a brave 
figure when he shouldered a gun and started for 
the woods after wild chickens, always serviceable, 
always ingratiating and gay, I would sometimes 
wonder where he found his cheerfulness. He had 
enough to sober him, I thought, in his official 
budget. His expenses — for he was always seen 
attired in virgin white— must have by far ex- 
ceeded his income of six dollars in the year, or 
say two shillings a month. And he was himself 
a man of no substance; his house the poorest in 
the village. It was currently supposed that his 
elder brother, Kauanui, must have helped him out. 
But how comes it that the elder brother should 
succeed to the family estate, and be a wealthy 
commoner, and the younger be a poor man, and 
yet rule as chief in Anaho? 
That the one should be wealthy and the other 
almost indigent is probably to be explained by 
some adoption; for comparatively few children are 


THE MARQUESAS 55 


brought up in the house or succeed to the estates 
of their natural begetters. That the one should 
be chief instead of the other must be explained 
(in a very Irish fashion) on the ground that 
neither of them is a chief at all. 

Since the return and the wars of the French, 
many chiefs have been deposed, and many so- 
called chiefs appointed. We have seen, in the 
same house, one such upstart drinking in the 
company of two such extruded island Bourbons, 
men, whose word a few years ago was life and 
death, now sunk :to be peasants like their neigh- 
bours. So when the French overthrew hereditary 
tyrants, dubbed the commons of the Marquesas 
free-born citizens of the Republic, and endowed 
them with a vote’ for a conseiller général at Tahiti, 
they probably conceived themselves upon the path 
to popularity; and so far from that, they were 
revolting public sentiment. The deposition of the 
chiefs was perhaps sometimes needful; the ap- 
pointment of others may have been needful also; 
it was at least a delicate business. The Govern- 
ment of George II. exiled many Highland mag- 
nates. It never occurred to them to manufacture 
substitutes; and if the French have been more 
bold, we have yet to see with what success. 

Our chief at Anaho was always called, he always 
called himself, Taipi-Kikino; and yet that was not 
his name, but only the wand of his false position. 
As soon as he was appointed chief, his name — 
which signified, if I remember exactly, Prince’ 
born among flowers — fell in abeyance, and he 


66 IN THE SOUP Vs eae 


was dubbed instead by the expressive by-word, 
Taipi-Kikino — Highwater man-of-no-account — 
or, Englishing more boldly, Beggar on horseback 
—a witty and a wicked cut. A nickname in 
Polynesia destroys almost the memory of the 
original name. To-day, if we were Polynesians, 
Gladstone would be no more heard of. We should 
speak of and address our Nestor as the Grand 
Old Man, and it is so that himself would sign 
his correspondence. Not the prevalence, then, but 
the significancy of the nickname is to be noted 
here. The new authority began with small pres- 
tige. Taipi has now been some time in office; 
from all I saw he seemed a person very fit. He 
is not the least unpopular, and yet his power is 
nothing. He is a chief to the French, and goes 
to breakfast with the Resident; but for any prac- 
tical end of chieftaincy a rag doll were equally 
efficient. 

We had been but three days in Anaho when we 
received the visit of the chief of Hatiheu, a man 
of weight and fame, late leader of a war upon the 
French, late prisoner in Tahiti, and the last eater 


of long-pig in Nukahiva. Not many years have 


4 since he was seen striding on the beach 
Anaho, a dead man’s arm across his shoulder. 
“So does Kooamua to his enemies!” he roared 


- to the passers-by, and took a bite from the raw 


flesh. And now behold this gentleman, very wisely 


replaced in office by the French, paying us a 
_ morning visit in European clothes. He was the 
man of the most character we had yet seen: his 


THE MARQUESAS. 947 


manners genial and decisive, his person tall, his 
face rugged, astute, formidable, and with a certain 
similarity to Mr. Gladstone’s — only for the brown- 
ness of the skin, and the high-chief’s tattooing all 
one side, and much of the other being of an even 
blue. Further acquaintance increased our opinion 
of his sense. He viewed the Casco in a manner 
then quite new to us, examining her lines and the 
running of the gear; to a piece of knitting on 
which one of the party was engaged, he must 
have devoted ten minutes’ patient study; nor did 
he desist before he had divined the principles; 
and he was interested even to excitement by a 
typewriter, which he learned to work. When he 
departed he carried away with him a list of his 
family, with his own name printed by his own 
hand at the bottom. I should add that he was 
plainly much of a humourist, and not a little of a 
humbug. He told us, for instance, that he was a 
person of exact sobriety; such being the obliga- 
tion of his high estate: the commons might be 
sots, but the chief could not stoop so low. And 
not many days after he was to be observed in a 
state of smiling and lopsided imbecility, the Casco 
ribbon upside down on his dishonoured hat. 

But his business that morning in Anaho is what 
concerns us here. The devil-fish, it seems, were 
growing scarce upon the reef; it was judged fit 
to interpose what we should call a close season; 
for that end, in Polynesia, a tapu (vulgarly spelt 
“taboo”’) has to be declared, and who was to 
declare it? Taipi might; he ought; it was a 


8 IN ADHE S$ O00 Thi sie 


chief part of his duty; but would any one re- 
gard the inhibition of a Beggar on Horseback? 
He might plant palm branches; it did not in the 
least follow that the spot was sacred. He might 
recite the spell: it was shrewdly supposed the 
spirits would not hearken. And the old, legiti- 
mate cannibal must ride over the mountains to do 
it for him; and the respectable official in white 
clothes could but look on and envy. At about the 
same time, though in a different manner, Kooa- 
mua established a forest law. It was observed 
the cocoa-palms were suffering, for the plucking 
of green nuts impoverishes and at last endangers 
the tree. Now Kooamua céuld tapu the reef, 
which was public property, but he could not tapu 
other people’s palms; and the expedient adopted 
was interesting. He tapued his own trees, and his 
example was imitated over all Hatiheu and Anaho. 
I fear Taipi might have tapued all that he pos- 
sessed and found none to follow him. So much 
for the esteem in which the dignity of an ap- 
pointed chief is held by others; a single circum- 
stance will show what he thinks of it himself. I 
» never met one, but he took an early opportunity 
to explain his situation. True, he was only an 
appointed chief when I beheld him; but some- 
where else, perhaps upon some other isle, he was 
a chieftain by descent: upon which ground, he 
asked me (so to say it) to excuse his mushroom 
honours. 

- It will be observed with surprise that both these 
tapus are for thoroughly sensible ends. With 


THE MARQUESAS 59 


surprise, I say, because the nature of that institu- 
tion is much misunderstood in Europe. It is taken 
usually in the sense of a meaningless or wanton 
prohibition, such as that which to-day prevents 
women in some countries from smoking, or yes- 
terday prevented any one in Scotland from taking 
a walk on Sunday. The error is no less natural 
than it is unjust. The Polynesians have not been 
trained in the bracing, practical thought of ancient 
Rome; with them the idea of law has not been 
disengaged from that of morals or propriety; so 
that tapu has to cover the whole field, and im- 
plies indifferently that an act is criminal, immoral, 
against sound public policy, unbecoming or (as 
we say) “not in good form.” Many tapus were 
in consequence absurd enough, such as those which 
deleted words out of the language, and particularly 
those which related to women. Tapu encircled 
women upon all hands. Many things were for- 
bidden to men; to women we may say that few 
were permitted. They must not sit on the paepae; 
they must not go up to it by the stair; they must 
not eat pork; they must not approach a boat; they 
must not cook at a fire which any male had kindled. 
The other day, after the roads were made, it was 
observed the women plunged along the margin 
through the bush, and when they came to a bridge 
waded through the water; roads and bridges were 
the work of men’s hands, and tapu for the foot 
of women. Even a man’s saddle, if the man be 
native, is a thing no self-respecting lady dares to 
use. Thus on the Anaho side of the island, only 


60 (IN THE SOUTH sas 


two white men, Mr. Regler and the gendarme, 
M. Aussel, possess saddles; and when a woman 
has a journey to make she must borrow from one 
or other. It will be noticed that these prohibi- 
tions tend, most of them, to an increased reserve 
between the sexes. Regard for female chastity is 
the usual excuse for these disabilities that men de- 
light to lay upon their wives and mothers. Here 
the regard is absent; and behold the women still 
bound hand and foot with meaningless proprieties ! 
The women themselves, who are survivors of the 
old regimen, admit that in those days life was 
not worth living. And yet even then there were 
exceptions. There were female chiefs and (I am 
assured) priestesses besides; nice customs curt- 
seyed to great dames, and in the most sacred 
enclosure of a High Place, Father Siméon Delwar 
was shown a stone, and told it was the throne of 
some well-descended lady. How exactly parallel 
is this with European practice, when princesses 
were suffered to penetrate the strictest cloister, 
and women could rule over a land in which they 
were denied the control of their own children. 
But the tapu is more often the instrument of 
wise and needful restrictions. We have seen it as 
the organ of paternal government. It serves be- 
sides to enforce, in the rare case of some one 
wishing to enforce them, rights of private property. 
Thus a man, weary of the coming and going of 
Marquesan visitors, tapus his door; and to this 
day you may see the palm-branch signal, even as 
our great-grandfathers saw the peeled wand before 


THE MARQUESAS 61 


a Highland inn. Or take another case. Anaho is 
known as “the country without popoi.” The word 
popoi serves in different islands to indicate the 
main food of the people: thus, in Hawaii, it im- 
plies a preparation of taro; in the Marquesas, of 
breadfruit. And a Marquesan does not readily 
conceive life possible without his favourite diet. 
A few years ago a drought killed the breadfruit 
trees and the bananas in the district of Anaho; 
and from this calamity, and the open-handed cus- 
toms of the island, a singular state of things arose. 
Well-watered Hatiheu had escaped the drought; 
every householder of Anaho accordingly crossed 
the pass, chose some one in Hatiheu, “ gave him 
his name’’—an onerous gift, but one not to be 
rejected — and from this improvised relative pro- 
ceeded to draw his.supplies, for all the world as 
though he had paid for them. Hence a continued 
traffic on the road. Some stalwart fellow, in a loin- 
cloth, and glistening with sweat, may be seen at all 
hours of the day, a stick across his bare shoulders, 
tripping nervously under a double burthen of green 
fruits. And on the far side of the gap a dozen 
stone posts on the wayside in the shadow of 
a grove mark the breathing-place of the popot- 
carriers. A little back from the beach, and not 
half a mile from Anaho, I was the more amazed 
to find a cluster of well-doing breadfruits heavy 
with their harvest. ‘‘ Why do you not take these?” 
I asked. ‘‘ Tapu,” said Hoka; and I thought to 
myself (after the manner of dull travellers) what 
children and fools these people were to toil over 


62 IN *DHE SOUTPH Sas 


the mountain and despoil innocent neighbours when 
the staff of life was thus growing at their door. I 
was the more in error. In the general destruction 
these surviving trees were enough only for the 
family of the proprietor, and by the simple ex- 
pedient of declaring a tapu he enforced his right. 
The sanction of the tapu is superstitious; and 
the punishment of infraction either a wasting or 
a deadly sickness. A slow disease follows on the 
eating of tapu fish, and can only be cured with the 
bones of the same fish burned with the due mys- 
teries. The cocoa-nut and breadfruit tapu works 
more swiftly. Suppose you have eaten tapu fruit 
at the evening meal, at night your sleep will be un- 
easy; in the morning, swelling and a dark discolor- 
ation will have attacked your neck, whence they 
spread upward to the face; and in two days, unless 
the cure be interjected, you must die. This cure is 
prepared from the rubbed leaves of the tree from 
which the patient stole; so that he cannot be saved 
without confessing to the kahuku the person whom 
he wronged. In the experience of my informant, 
almost no tapu had been put in use, except the 
two described: he had thus no opportunity to 
learn the nature and operation of the others; and, 
as the art of making them was jealously guarded 
amongst the old men, he believed the mystery 
would soon die out. I should add that he was no 
Marquesan, but a Chinaman, a resident in the 
group from boyhood, and a reverent believer in 
the spells which he described. White men, amongst 
whom Ah Foo included himself, were exempt; 


THE MARQUESAS 63 


but he had a tale of a Tahitian woman who had 
come to the Marquesas, eaten tapu fish, and, 
although uninformed of her offence and danger, 
had been afflicted and cured exactly like a native. 
Doubtless the belief is strong; doubtless, with 


this weakly and fanciful race, it is in many cases | > 


strong enough to kill; it should be strong indeed 
in those who tapu their trees secretly, so that they 


may detect a depredator by his sickness. Or, per- ~ 


haps, we should understand the idea of the hidden 
tapu otherwise, as a politic device to spread uneasi- 
ness and extort confessions: so that, when a man is 
ailing, he shall ransack his brain for any possible 
offence, and send at once for any proprietor whose 
rights he has invaded. ‘‘ Had you hidden a tapu?”’ 
we may conceive him asking; and I cannot imagine 
the proprietor gainsaying it; and this is perhaps the 
strangest feature of the system — that it should be 
regarded from without with such a mental and im- 
plicit awe, and, when examined from within, should 
present so many apparent evidences of design. 
We read in Dr. Campbell’s Poenamo of a New 
Zealand girl who was foolishly told that she had 
eaten a tapu yam, and who instantly sickened, and 
died in the two days of simple terror. The period 
is the same as in the Marquesas; doubtless the 
symptoms were so too. How singular to consider 
that a superstition of such sway is possibly a 
manufactured article; and that, even if it were not 
originally invented, its details have plainly been 
arranged by the authorities of some Polynesian 
Scotland Yard. Fitly enough, the belief is to-day 


eos. 
‘ ~ 
¢ ; eee. 
; 

tee 


64 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


— and was probably always — far from universal. 
Hell at home is a strong deterrent with some; a 
passing thought with others; with others, again, a 
theme of public mockery, not always well assured ; 
and so in the Marquesas with the tapu. Mr. Regler 
had seen the two extremes of scepticism and im- 
plicit fear. In the tapu grove he found one fellow 
stealing breadfruit, cheerful and impudent as a 
street arab; and it was only on a menace of ex- 
posure that he showed himself the least discoun- 
tenanced. The other case was opposed in every 
point. Mr. Regler asked a native to accompany 
him upon a voyage; the man went gladly enough, 
but suddenly perceiving a dead tapu fish in the bot- 
tom of the boat, leaped back with a scream; nor 
could the promise of a dollar prevail upon him to 
advance. 

The Marquesan, it will be observed, adheres to 
the old idea of the local circumspection of beliefs 
and duties. Not only are the whites exempt from 
consequence; but their transgressions seem to be 
viewed without horror. It was Mr. Regler who 
had killed the fish; yet the devout native was not 
shocked at Mr. Regler — only refused to join him 
in his boat. A white is a white: the servant (so to 
speak) of other and more liberal gods; and not 
to be blamed if he profit by his liberty. The Jews 
were perhaps the first to interrupt this ancient 
comity of faiths; and the Jewish virus is still 
strong in Christianity. All the world must respect 
eur tapus, or we gnash our teeth. 


CHAPTER VII 


HATIHEU 


HE bays of Anaho and Hatiheu are 
divided at their roots by the knife-edge of 
a single hill—the pass so often men- 
tioned; but this isthmus expands to the seaward in 
a considerable peninsula: very bare and grassy; 
haunted by sheep and, at night and morning, by the 
piercing cries of the shepherds; wandered over by a 
few wild goats; and on its sea-front indented with 
long, clamorous caves, and faced with cliffs of the 
colour and ruinous outline of an old peat-stack. In 
one of these echoing and sunless gullies we saw, 
clustered like sea-birds on a splashing ledge, shrill 
as sea-birds in their salutation to the passing boat, 
a group of fisherwomen, stripped to their gaudy 
under-clothes. (The clash of the surf and the thin 
female voices echo in my memory.) We had that 
day a native crew and steersman, Kauanui; it was 
our first experience of Polynesian seamanship, 
which consists in hugging every point of land. 
There is no thought in this of saving time, for they 
will pull a long way in to skirt a point that is em- 
bayed. It seems that, as they can never get their 
houses near enough the surf upon the one side, so 
5 


66°1N THE SOUTH Sime 


they can never get their boats near enough upon the 
other. The practice in bold water is not so danger- 
ous as it looks — the reflex from the rocks sending 
the boat off. Near beaches with a heavy run of sea, 
I continue to think it very hazardous, and find the 
composure of the natives annoying to behold. We 
took unmingled pleasure, on the way out, to see so 
near at hand the beach and the wonderful colours 
of the surf. On the way back, when the sea had 
risen and was running strong against us, the fine- 
ness of the steersman’s aim grew more embarrass- 
ing. As we came abreast of the sea-front, where 
the surf broke highest, Kauanui embraced the occa- 
sion to light his pipe, which then made the circuit 
of the boat — each man taking a whiff or two, and, 
ere he passed it on, filling his lungs and cheeks with 
smoke. Their faces were all puffed out like apples 
as we came abreast of the cliff foot, and the burst- 
ing surge fell back into the boat in showers. At the 
next point “cocanetti’’ was the word, and the 
stroke borrowed my knife, and desisted from his 
labours to open nuts. These untimely indulgences 
may be compared to the tot of grog served out 
before a ship goes into action. 

My purpose in this visit led me first to the boys’ 
school, for Hatiheu is the university of the north 
islands. The hum of the lesson came out to meet 
us. Close by the door, where the draught blew 
coolest, sat the lay brother; around him, in a 
packed half-circle, some sixty high-coloured faces 
set with staring eyes; and in the background of the 
barn-like room benches were to be seen, and black- 


THE MARQUESAS 67 


boards with sums on them in chalk. The brother 
rose to greet us, sensibly humble. ‘Thirty years 
he had been there, he said, and fingered his white 
locks as a bashful child pulls out his pinafore. 
“Et point de résultats, monsieur, presque pas de 
résultats.” He pointed to the scholars: “ You see, 
sir, all the youth of Nuka-hiva and Uapu. Between 
the ages of six and fifteen this is all that remains; 
and it is but a few years since we had a hundred 
and twenty from Nuka-hiva alone. Om, monsieur, 
cela se dépérit.” Prayers, and reading and writ- 
ing, prayers again and arithmetic, and more 
prayers to conclude: such appeared to be the dreary 
nature of the course. For arithmetic all island 
people have a natural taste. In Hawaii they make 
good progress in mathematics. In one of the vil- 
lages on Majuro, and generally in the Marshall 
group, the whole population sit about the trader 
when he is weighing copra, and each on his own 
slate takes down the figures and computes the total. 
The trader, finding them so apt, introduced frac- 
tions, for which they had been taught no rule. 
At first they were quite gravelled, but ultimately, 
by sheer hard thinking, reasoned out the result, and 
came one after another to assure the trader he was 
right. Not many people in Europe could have done 
the like. The course at Hatiheu is therefore less 
dispiriting to Polynesians than a stranger might 
have guessed; and yet how bald it is at best! I 
asked the brother if he did not tell them stories, and 
he stared at me; if he did not teach them history, 
and he said, “O yes, they had a little Scripture 
: 6 
(s { 


68 TD NSD EE SOoUV I EL ase 


history —from the New Testament”; and ‘re 
peated his lamentations over the lack of regilts. 
I had not the heart to put more questions; I could 
but say it must be very discouraging, and resist the 
impulse to add that it seemed also very natural. 
He looked up — “ My days are far spent,” he said; 
“heaven awaits me.’ May that heaven forgive 
me, but I was angry with the old man and his 
simple consolation. For think of his opportunity! 
The youth, from six to fifteen, are taken from their 
homes by Government, centralised at Hatiheu, 
where they are supported by a weekly tax of food; 
and with the exception of one month in every year, 
surrendered wholly to the direction of the priests. 
Since the escapade already mentioned the holiday 
occurs at a different period for the girls and for the 
boys; so that a Marquesan brother and sister meet 
again, after their education is complete, a pair of 
strangers. It is a harsh law, and highly unpopular; 
but what a power it places in the hands of the 
instructors, and how languidly and dully is that 
power employed by the mission! Too much con- 
cern to make the natives pious, a design in which 
they all confess defeat, is, I suppose, the explana- 
tion of their miserable system. But they might 
see in the girls’ school at Tai-o-hae, under the brisk, 
housewifely sisters, a different picture of efficiency, 
and a scene of neatness, airiness, and spirited and 
mirthful occupation that should shame them into 
cheerier methods. The sisters themselves lament 
their failure. They complain the annual holiday 
undoes the whole year’s work; they complain 


y! 


THE MARQUESAS 69 
particularly of the heartless indifference of the girls. 
Out of so many pretty and apparently affectionate 
pupils whom they have taught and reared, only two 
have ever returned to pay a visit of remembrance 
to their teachers. These, indeed, come regularly, 
but the rest, so soon as their school-days are over, 
disappear into the woods like captive insects. It 
is hard to imagine anything more discouraging; 
and yet I do not believe these ladies need despair. 
For a certain interval they keep the girls alive and 
innocently busy; and if it be at all possible to save 
the race, this would be the means. No such praise 
can be given to the boys’ school at Hatiheu. The 
day is numbered already for them all; alike for the 
teacher and the scholars death is girt; he is afoot 
upon the march; and in the frequent interval they 
sit and yawn. But in life there seems a thread of 
purpose through the least significant; the drowsi- 
est endeavour is not lost, and even the school at 
Hatiheu may be more useful than it seems. 
Hatiheu is a place of some pretensions. The end 
of the bay towards Anaho may be called the civil 
compound, for it boasts the house of Kooamua, and 
close on the beach, under a great tree, that of the 
gendarme, M. Armand Aussel, with his garden, his 
pictures, his books, and his excellent table, to which 
strangers are made welcome. No more singular 
contrast possible than between the gendarmerie and 
the priesthood, who are besides in smouldering op- 
position and full of mutual complaints. A priest’s 
kitchen in the Eastern islands is a depressing spot to 
see; and many, or most of them, make no attempt 


70 IN THE SOU PH (Sis 


to keep a garden, sparsely subsisting on their ra- 
tions. But you will never dine with a gendarme 
without smacking your lips; and M. Aussel’s home- 
made sausage and the salad from his garden are 
unforgotten delicacies. Pierre Loti may like to 
know that he is M. Aussel’s favourite author, and 
that his books are read in the fit scenery of Hatiheu — 
bay. 

The other end is all religious. It is here that an 
overhanging and tip-tilted horn, a good sea-mark 
for Hatiheu, bursts naked from the verdure of the 
climbing forest, and breaks down shoreward in 
steep taluses and cliffs. From the edge of one of 
the highest, perhaps seven hundred or a thousand 
feet above the beach, a Virgin looks insignificantly 
down, like a poor lost doll, forgotten there by a 
giant child. This laborious symbol of the Catholics 
is always strange to Protestants; we conceive with 
wonder that men should think it worth while to 
toil so many days, and clamber so much about the 
face of precipices, for an end that makes us smile; 
and yet I believe it was the wise Bishop Dardillon 
who chose the place, and I know that those who 
had a hand in the enterprise look back with pride 
upon its vanquished dangers. The boys’ school is 
a recent importation; it was at first in Tai-o-hae, 
beside the girls’; and it was only of late, after their 
joint escapade, that the width of the island was 
interposed between the sexes. But Hatiheu must 
have been a place of missionary importance from 
before. About midway of the beach no less than 
three churches stand grouped in a patch of bananas, 


THE MARQUESAS/~ 71 


intermingled with some pine-apples. Two are of 
wood: the original church, now in disuse; and a 
second that, for some mysterious reason, has never 
been used. The new church is of stone, with twin 
towers, walls flangeing into buttresses, and sculp- 
tured front. The design itself is good, simple, and 
shapely; but the character is all in the detail, where 
the architect has bloomed into the sculptor._ It is 
impossible to tell in words of the angels (although 
they are more like winged archbishops) that stand 
guard upon the door, of the cherubs in the corners, 
of the scapegoat gargoyles, or the quaint and 
spirited relief, where Michael (the artist’s patron) 
makes short work of a protesting Lucifer. We 
were never weary of viewing the imagery, so inno- 
cent, sometimes so funny, and yet in the best sense 
— in the sense of inventive gusto and expression — 
so artistic. JI know not whether it was more 
strange to find a building of such merit in a cor- 
ner of a barbarous isle, or to see a building so 
antique still bright with novelty. The architect, 
a French lay brother, still alive and well, and 
meditating fresh foundations, must have’ surely 
drawn his descent from a master-builder in the 
age of the cathedrals; and it was in looking 
on the church of Hatiheu that I seemed to 
perceive the secret charm of medizval sculpture; 
that combination of the childish courage of the 
amateur, attempting all things, like the school- 
boy on his slate, with the manly perseverance 
of the artist who does not know when he *is 
conquered. 


® 


72a. INS DERE S OOO Sth as 


I had always afterwards a strong wish to meet 
the architect, Brother Michel; and one day, when 
I was talking with the Resident in Tai-o-hae (the 
chief port of the island), there were shown in to 
us an old, worn, purblind, ascetic-looking priest, 
and a lay brother, a type of all that is most sound 
in France, with a broad, clever, honest, humourous 
countenance, an eye very large and bright, and a 
strong and healthy body inclining to obesity. But 
that his blouse was black and his face shaven clean, 
you might pick such a man to-day, toiling cheer- 
fully in his own patch of vines, from half-a-dozen 
provinces of France; and yet he had always for 
me a haunting resemblance to an old kind friend 
of my boyhood, whom I name in case any of my 
readers should share with me that memory — Dr. 
Paul, of the West Kirk. Almost at the first word I 
was sure it was my architect, and in a moment 
we were deep in a discussion of Hatiheu church. 
Brother Michel spoke always of his labours with a 
twinkle of humour, underlying which it was pos- 
sible to spy a serious pride, and the change from one 
to another was often very human and diverting. 
“ Et vos gargouilles moyen-age,” cried 1; “ comme 
- elles sont originales!’’ “ N’est-ce pas? Elles sont 
bien droéles!” he said, smiling broadly; and the 
next moment, with a sudden gravity: “ Cependant 
il y en a une quia une patie de cassé; iu faut que 
je vote cela.” I asked if he had any model —a 
point we much discussed. “‘ Non,” said he simply; 
“est une église tdéale.’ The relievo was his 
favourite performance, and very justly so. The 


THE MARQUESAS_ 73 


angels at the door, he owned, he would like to 
destroy and replace. “Jls n’ont pas de vie, ils 
manquent de vie. Vous devriez vow mon église a 
la Dominique; ja la une vierge qui est vraiment 
gentille.” “Ah,” I cried, “ they told me you had 
said you would never build another church, and 
I wrote in my journal I could not believe it.” 
“Out, faimerais bien en faire une autre,” he con- 
fessed, and smiled at the confession. An artist 
will understand how much I was attracted by 
this conversation. There is no bond so near 
as a community in that unaffected interest and 
slightly shamefaced pride which mark the intel- 
ligent man enamoured of an art. He sees the 
limitations of his aim, the defects of his practice; 
he smiles to be so employed upon the shores of 
death, yet sees in his own devotion something 
worthy. Artists, if they had the same sense 
of humour with the Augurs, would smile like 
them on meeting, but the smile would not be 
scornful. 

I had occasion to see much of this excellent man. 
He sailed with us from Tai-o-hae to Hiva-oa, a 
dead beat of ninety miles against a heavy sea. It 
was what is called a good passage, and a feather in 
the Casco’s cap; but among the most miserable 
forty hours that any one of us had ever passed. 
We were swung and tossed together all that time 
like shot in a stage thunder-box. The mate was 
thrown down and had his head cut open; the cap- 
tain was sick on deck; the cook sick in the galley. 
Of all our party only two sat down to dinner. | 


74 IN THE SOUTH SHAS 


was one. I own that I felt wretchedly; and I can 
only say of the other, who professed to feel quite 
well, that she fled at an early moment from the 
table. It was in these circumstances that we skirted 
the windward shore of that indescribable island 
of Uapu; viewing with dizzy eyes the coves, the 
capes, the breakers, the climbing forests, and the 
inaccessible stone needles that surmount the moun- 
tains. The place persists, in a dark corner of our, 
memories, like a piece of the scenery of nightmares. 
The end of this distressful passage, where we were 
to land our passengers, was in a similar vein of 
roughness. The surf ran high on the beach at 
Taahauku; the boat broached-to and capsized; 
and all hands were submerged. Only the brother 
himself, who was well used to the experience, 
skipped ashore, by some miracle of agility, with 
scarce a sprinkling. Thenceforward, during our 
stay at Hiva-oa, he was our cicerone and patron; 
introducing us, taking us excursions, serving us 
in every way, and making himself daily more 
beloved. 

Michel Blanc had been a carpenter by trade; 
had made money and retired, supposing his active 
days quite over; and it was only when he found 
idleness dangerous that he placed his capital and 
acquirements at the service of the mission. He 
became their carpenter, mason, architect, and en- 
gineer; added sculpture to his accomplishments, 
and was famous for his skill in gardening. He 
wore an enviable air of having found a port 
from life’s contentions and lying there strongly 


THE MARQUESAS 75 


anchored; went about his business with a jolly 
simplicity; complained of no lack of results — 
perhaps shyly thinking his own statuary result 
enough; and was altogether a pattern of the 
missionary layman. 


yi 


A 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE PORT OF ENTRY 


wi | HE port—the mart, the civil and re- 
A ligious capital of these rude islands — is 


called Tai-o-hae, and lies strung along 
the beach of a precipitous green bay in Nuka-hiva. 
It was midwinter when we came thither, and the 
weather was sultry, boisterous, and inconstant. 
Now the wind blew squally from the land down 
gaps of splintered precipice; now, between the 
sentinel islets of the entry, it came in gusts from 
seaward. Heavy and dark clouds impended on 
the summits; the rain roared and ceased; the 
scuppers of the mountain gushed; and the next 
day we would see the sides of the amphitheatre 
bearded with white falls. Along the beach the: 
town shows a thin file of houses, mostly white, and 
all ensconced in the foliage of an avenue of green 
puraos; a pier gives access from the sea across the 
belt of breakers; to the eastward there stands, on 
a projecting bushy hill, the old fort which is now 
the calaboose, or prison; eastward still, alone in 
a garden, the Residency flies the colours of France. 
Just off Calaboose Hill, the tiny Government 
schooner rides almost permanently at anchor, 


THE MARQUESAS~ 7 


marks eight bells in the morning (there or there- 
about) with the unturling of her flag, and salutes 
the setting sun with the report of a musket. 

Here dwell together, and share the comforts of 
a club (which may be enumerated as a billiard- 
board, absinthe, a map of the world on Mercator’s 
projection, and one of the most agreeable veran- 
das in the tropics), a handful of whites of 
varying nationality, mostly French officials, Ger- 
man and Scottish merchant clerks, and the agents 
of the opium monopoly. There are besides three 
tavern-keepers, the shrewd Scot who runs the cot- 
ton gin-mill, two white ladies, and a sprinkling of 
people “on the beach ’’ —a South Sea expression 
for which there is no exact equivalent. It is a 
pleasant society, and a hospitable. But one man, 
who was often to be seen seated on the logs at the 
pier-head, merits a word for the singularity of his 
history and appearance. Long ago, it seems, he 
fell in love with a native lady, a high chiefess in 
Uapu. She, on being approached, declared she 
could never marry a man who was untattooed; it 
looked so naked; whereupon, with some greatness 
of soul, our hero put himself in the hands of the 
Tahukus, and with still greater, persevered until 
the process was complete. He had certainly to 
bear a great expense, for the Tahuku will not work 
without reward; and certainly exquisite pain. 
Kooamua, high chief as he was, and one of the 
old school, was only part tattooed; he could not, 
he told us with lively pantomime, endure the torture 
to an end. Our enamoured countryman was more 


78 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


resolved; he was tattooed from head to foot in 
the most approved methods of the art; and at 
last presented himself before his mistress a new 
man. The fickle fair one could never behold him 
from that day except with laughter. For my part, 
I could never see the man without a kind of ad- 
miration; of him it might be said, if ever of any, 
that he had loved not wisely, but too well. 

The Residency stands by itself, Calaboose Hill 
screening it from the fringe of town along the 
further bay. The house is commodious, with wide 
verandas; all day it stands open back and front, 
and the trade blows copiously over its bare floors, 
On a week day the garden offers a scene of most 
untropical animation, half-a-dozen convicts toiling 
there cheerfully with spade and barrow, and touch- 
ing hats and smiling to the visitor like old attached 
family servants. On Sunday these are gone, and 
nothing to be seen but dogs of all ranks and sizes 
peacefully slumbering in the shady grounds; for 
the dogs of Tai-o-hae are very courtly-minded, 
and make the seat of Government their promenade 
and place of siesta. In front and beyond, a strip 
of green down loses itself in a low wood of many 
species of acacia; and deep in the wood a ruinous 
wall encloses the cemetery of the Europeans. 
English and Scottish sleep there, and Scandina- 
vians, and French maitres de manoeuvres and 
maitres ouvriers: mingling alien dust. Back in the 
woods perhaps, the blackbird, or (as they call him 
there) the island nightingale, will be singing home 
strains; and the ceaseless requiem of the surf 


THE MARQUESAS _ 49 


Nangs on the ear. I have never seen a resting- 
place more quiet; but it was a long thought how 
far these sleepers had all travelled, and from what 
\diverse homes they had set forth, to lie here in the 
end together. 

On the summit of its promontory hill, the cala- 
boose stands all day with doors and window- 
shutters open to the trade. On my first visit a dog 
was the only guardian visible. He, indeed, rose 
with an attitude so menacing that I was glad to 
lay hands on an old barrel-hoop; and I think the 
weapon must have been familiar, for the champion 
instantly retreated, and as I wandered round the 
court and through the building, I could see him, 
with a couple of companions, humbly dodging me 
about the corners. The prisoners’ dormitory was 
a spacious, airy room, devoid of any furniture; its 
whitewashed walls covered with inscriptions in 
Marquesan and rude drawings: one of the pier, 
not badly done; one of a murder; several of 
French soldiers in uniform. There was one legend 
in French: “Je n'est” (sic) “ pas le sou.” From 
this noontide quietude it must not be supposed the 
prison was untenanted; the calaboose at Tai-o-hae 
does a good business. But some of its occupants 
were gardening at the Residency, and the rest were 
probably at work upon the streets, as free as our 
scavengers at home, although not so industrious. 
On the approach of evening they would be called 
in like children from play; and the harbour-master 
(who is also the jailer) would go through the forna 
of locking them up until six the next morning. 


86 IN dt EE. SO. Ui abl Sees 


Should a prisoner have any call in town, whether 
of pleasure or affairs, he has but to unhook the 
window-shutter; and if he is back again, and the 
shutter decently replaced, by the hour of call on 
the morrow, he may have met the harbour-master 
in the avenue, and there will be no complaint, far 
less any punishment. But this is not all. The 
charming French Resident, M. Delaruelle, carried 
me one day to the calaboose on an official visit. 
In the green court, a very ragged gentleman, his 
legs deformed with the island elephantiasis, saluted 
us smiling. ‘“‘ One of our political prisoners —-- an 
insurgent from Raiatea,’ said the Resident; and 
then to the jailer: “I thought I had ordered him 
a new pair of trousers.’”’ Meanwhile no other 
convict was to be seen — “‘ Eh bien,” said the Resi- 
dent, “ ou sont vos prisonniers?”’ “ Monsieur le 
Résident,”’ replied the jailer, saluting with soldierly 
formality, “ comme c’est jour de féte, je les ai laissé 
aller a& la chasse.’ They were all upon the moun- 
tains hunting goats! Presently we came to the 
quarters of the women, likewise deserted — “ Ou 
sont vos bonnes femmes?’ asked the Resident ; and 
the jailer cheerfully responded: “ Je crois, Monsieur 
le Résident, quelles sont allés quelquepart faire une 
visite.’ It had been the design of M. Delaruelle, 
who was much in love with the whimsicalities of 
his small realm, to elicit something comical; but 
not even he expected anything so perfect as the 
last. To complete the picture of convict life in 
Tai-o-hae, it remains to be added that these crimi- 
nals draw a salary as regularly as the President of 


DHE MARQUESAS 81 


the Republic. Ten sous a day is their hire. Thus 
they have money, food, shelter, clothing, and, I 
was about to write, their liberty. The French are 
certainly a good-natured people, and make easy 
masters. They are besides inclined to view the 
Marquesans with an eye of humourous indulgence. 
“They are dying, poor devils!’ said M. Delaruelle; 
“the main thing is to let them die in peace.”’ And 
it was not only well said, but I believe expressed 
the general thought. Yet there is another element 
to be considered; for these convicts are not merely 
useful, they are almost essential to the French 
existence. With a people incurably idle, dispirited 
by what can only be called endemic pestilence, and 
inflamed with ill-feeling against their new masters, 
crime and convict labour are a godsend to the 
Government. 

Theft is practically the sole crime. Originally 
petty pilferers, the men of Tai-o-hae now begin to 
force locks and attack strong-boxes. Hundreds 
of dollars have been taken at a time; though, with 
that redeeming moderation so common in Poly- 
nesian theft, the Marquesan burglar will always 
take a part and leave a part, sharing (so to speak) 
with the proprietor. If it be Chilian coin — the 
island currency — he will escape; if the sum is in 
gold, French silver, or bank-notes, the police wait 
until the money begins to come in circulation, and 
then easily pick out the man. And now comes the 
shameful part. In plain English, the prisoner is 
tortured until he confesses and (if that be pos+ 
sible) restores the money. To keep him alone, day 

6 


$2. DN° WHE SOWPA sims 


and night, in the black hole, is to inflict on the Mar- 
quesan torture inexpressible. Even his robberies 
are carried on in the plain daylight, under the open 
sky, with the stimulus of enterprise, and the counte- 
nance of an accomplice; his terror of the dark is 
still insurmountable; conceive, then, what he en- 
dures in his solitary dungeon; conceive how he 
longs to confess, become a full-fledged convict, and 
be allowed to sleep beside his comrades. While we 
were in Tai-o-hae a thief was under prevention. 
He had entered a house about eight in the morn- 
ing, forced a trunk, and stolen eleven hundred 
francs; and now, under the horrors of darkness, 
solitude, and a bedevilled cannibal imagination, he 
was reluctantly confessing and giving up his spoil. 
From one cache, which he had already pointed 
out, three hundred francs had been recovered, and 
it was expected that he would presently disgorge 
the rest. This would be ugly enough if it were all; 
but | am bound to say, because it is a matter the 
French should set at rest, that worse is continually 
hinted. I heard that one man was kept six days 
with his arms bound backward round a barrel; and 
it is the universal report that every gendarme in 
tlie South Seas is equipped with something in the 
nature of a thumb-screw. I do not know this. I 
never had the face to ask any of the gendarmes — 
pleasant, intelligent, and kindly fellows — with 
whom I have been intimate, and whose hospitality 
I have enjoyed; and perhaps the tale reposes (as I 
hope it does) on a misconstruction of that ingen- 
ious cat’s-cradle with which the French agent of 


THE MARQUESAS 83 


police so readily secures a prisoner. But whether 
physical or moral, torture is certainly employed; 
and by a barbarous injustice the state of accusation 
(in which a man may very well be innocently 
placed) is positively painful; the state of convic- 
tion (in which all are supposed guilty) is com- 
paratively free, and positively pleasant. Perhaps 
worse still, — not only the accused, but sometimes 
his wife, his mistress, or his friend, is subjected 
to the same hardships. I was admiring, in the 
tapu system, the ingenuity of native methods of 
detection; there is not much to admire in those 
of the French, and to lock up a timid child 
in a dark room, and, if he prove obstinate, lock 
up his sister in the next, is neither novel nor 
humane. 

The main occasion of these thefts is the new vice 
of opium-eating. “ Here nobody ever works, and 
all eat opium,” said a gendarme; and Ah Fu knew 
a woman who ate a dollar’s worth ina day. The 
successful thief.will give a handful of money to 
each of his friends, a dress to a woman, pass an 
evening in one of the taverns of Tai-o-hae, during 
which he treats all comers, produce a big lump of 
opium, and retire to the bush to eat and sleep it off. 
A trader, who did not sell opium, confessed to me 
that he was at his wit’s end. ‘I do not sell it, but 
others do,” said he. “ The natives only work to 
buy it; if they walk over to me to sell their cotton, 
they have just to walk over to some one else to buy 
their opium with my money. And why should they 
be at the bother of two walks? There *3 no use 


$4 INY DHE SOU PASS 


talking,” he added — “ opium is the currency of 
this country.” 

The man under prevention during my stay at 
Tai-o-hae lost patience while the Chinese opium- 
seller was being examined in his presence. “ Of 
course he sold me opium!” he broke out; “all the 
Chinese here sell opium. It was only to buy opium 
that I stole; it is only to buy opium that any- 
body steals. And what you ought to do is to let no 
opium come here, and no Chinamen.” This is pre- 
cisely what is done in Samoa by a native Govern- 
ment; but the French have bound their own hands, 
and for forty thousand francs sold native subjects 
to crime and death. This horrid traffic may be said 
to have sprung up by accident. It was Captain 
Hart who had the misfortune to be the means of 
beginning it, at a time when his plantations flour- 
ished in the Marquesas, and he found a difficulty in 
keeping Chinese coolies. To-day the plantations 
are practically deserted and the Chinese gone; but 
in the meanwhile the natives have learned the vice, 
the patent brings in a round sum, and the needy 
Government at Papeete shut their eyes and open 
their pockets. Of course, the patentee is supposed 
to sell to Chinamen alone; equally of course, no one 
could afford to pay forty thousand francs for the 
privilege of supplying a scattered handful of 
Chinese; and every one knows the truth, and all 
are ashamed of it. French officials shake their 
heads when opium is mentioned; and the agents of 
the farmer blush for their employment. Those that 
live in glass houses should not throw stones; as a 


THE MARQUESAS 85 


subject of the British crown, I am an unwilling 
shareholder in the largest opium business under 
heaven. But the British case is highly complicated ; 
it implies the livelihood of millions; and must be 
reformed, when it can be reformed at all, with pru- 
dence. This French business, on the other hand, 
is a nostrum and a mere excrescence. No native 
industry was to be encouraged: the poison is sol- 
emnly imported. No native habit was to be con- 
sidered; the vice has been gratuitously introduced. 
And no creature profits, save the Government at 
Papeete — the not very enviable gentlemen who 
pay them, and the Chinese underlings who do the 
dirty work. 


CHAPTER IX 
THE HOUSE OF TEMOANA 


P AHE history of the Marquesas is, of late 
years, much confused by the coming and 
going of the French. At least twice they 

have seized the archipelago, at least once deserted 

it; and in the meanwhile the natives pursued almost 
without interruption their desultory cannibal wars. 

Through these events and changing dynasties, a 

single considerable figure may be seen to move: 

that of the high chief, a king, Temoana. Odds and 
ends of his history came to my ears: how he was 
at first a convert of the Protestant mission; how 
he was kidnapped or exiled from his native land, 
served as cook aboard a whaler, and was shown, 
for small charge, in English seaports; how he 
returned at last to the Marquesas, fell under the 
strong and benign influence of the late bishop, ex- 
tended his influence in the group, was for awhile 
joint ruler with the prelate, and died at last the 
chief supporter of Catholicism and the French. 

His widow remains in receipt of two pounds a 

month from the French Government. Queen she 

is usually called, but in the official almanac she 
figures as “ Madame Vaekehu, Grande Chefesse.” 


THE MARQUESAS $7 


* His son (natural or adoptive, I know not which), 
Stanislao Moanatini, chief of Akaui, serves in 
Tai-o-hae as a kind of Minister of Public Works, 
and the daughter of Stanislao is High Chiefess of 
the southern island of Tauata. These, then, are the 
greatest folk of the archipelago; we thought them 
also the most estimable. This is the rule in Poly- 
nesia, with few exceptions; the higher the family, 
the better the man — better in sense, better in man- 
ners, and usually taller and stronger in body. A 
stranger advances blindfold. He scrapes acquaint- 
ance as he can. Save the tattoo in the Marquesas, 
nothing indicates the difference of rank; and yet 
almost invariably we found, after we had made 
them, that our friends were persons of station. I 
have said “ usually taller and stronger.” I might 
have been more absolute,— over all Polynesia, 
and a part of Micronesia, the rule holds good; the 
great ones of the isle, and even of the village, are 
greater of bone and muscle, and often heavier of 
flesh, than any commoner. The usual explanation 
—that the high-born child is more industriously 
shampooed, is probably the true one. In New Cale- 
donia, at least, where the difference does not exist 
or has never been remarked, the practice of sham- 
pooing seems to be itself unknown. Doctors 
would be well employed in a study of the point. 

Vaekehu lives at the other end of the town from 
the Residency, beyond the buildings of the mission. 
Her house is on the European plan: a table in the 
midst of the chief room; photographs and religious. 
pictures on the wall. It commands to either hand 


88) "IN it BOE |S OU Seas 


a charming vista: through the front door, a peep 
of green lawn, scurrying pigs, the pendent fans of 
the cocoa-palm and the splendour of the bursting 
surf: through the back, mounting forest glades 
and coronals of precipice. Here, in the strong 
thorough-draught, Her Majesty received us in a 
simple gown of print, and with no mark of royalty 
but the exquisite finish of her tattooed mittens, the 
elaboration of her manners, and the gentle falsetto 
in which all the highly refined among Marquesan 
ladies (and Vaekehu above all others) delight to 
sing their language. An adopted daughter inter- 
preted, while we gave the news, and rehearsed by 
name our friends of Anaho. As we talked, we 
could see, through the landward door, another 
lady of the household at her toilet under the green 
trees; who presently, when her hair was arranged, 
and her hat wreathed with flowers, appeared upon 
the back veranda with gracious salutations. 
Vaekehu is very deaf; “ merci” is her only word 
of French; and I do not know that she seemed 
clever. An exquisite, kind refinement, with a 
shade of quietism, gathered perhaps from the nuns, 
was what chiefly struck us. Or rather, upon that 
first occasion, we were conscious of a sense as of 
district-visiting on our part, and reduced evangeli- 
cal gentility on the part of our hostess. The other 
impression followed after she was more at ease, and 
came with Stanislao and his little girl to dine on 
board the Casco. She had dressed for the occa- 
sion: wore white, which very well became her 
strong brown face; and sat among us, eating or 


THE MARQUESAS 89 


smoking her cigarette, quite cut off from all society, 
or only now and then included through the inter- 
mediary of her son. It was a position that might 
have been ridiculous, and she made it ornamental; 
making believe to hear and to be entertained; her 
face, whenever she met our eyes, lighting with the 
smile of good society ; her contributions to the talk, 
when she made any, and that was seldom, always 
complimentary and pleasing. No attention was 
paid to the child, for instance, but what she re- 
marked and thanked us for. Her parting with 
each, when she came to leave, was gracious and 
pretty, as had been every step of her behaviour. 
When Mrs. Stevenson held out her hand to say 
good-bye, Vaekehu took it, held it, and a moment 
smiled upon her; dropped it, and then, as upon a 
kindly afterthought, and with a sort of warmth of 
condescension, held out both hands and kissed my 
wife upon both cheeks. Given the same relation 
of years and of rank, the thing would have been so 
done on the boards of the Comédie Frangaise; just 
so might Madame Brohan have warmed and con- 
descended to Madame Broisat in the Marquis de 
Villemer. It was my part to accompany our guests 
ashore: when I kissed the little girl good-bye at 
the pier steps, Vaekehu gave a cry of gratification, 
reached down her hand into the boat, took mine, 
and pressed it with that flattering softness which 
seems the coquetry of the old lady in every quarter 
of the earth. The next moment she had taken 
Stanislao’s arm, and they moved off along the pier’ 
in the moonlight, leaving me bewildered. This was 


90. I NOT AE SOW iD Bee aes 


a queen of cannibals; she was tattooed from hand 
to foot, and perhaps the greatest masterpiece of that 
art now extant, so that awhile ago, before she was 
grown prim, her leg was one of the sights of Tai- 
o-hae; she had been passed from chief to chief; 
she had been fought for and taken in war; perhaps, - 
being so great a lady, she had sat on the high place, 
and throned it there, alone of her sex, while the 
drums were going twenty strong and the priests 
carried up the bloodstained baskets of long-pig. 
And now behold her, out of that past of violence 
and sickening feasts, step forth, in her age, a quiet, 
smooth, elaborate old lady, such as you might 
find at home (mittened also, but not often so well 
mannered) in a score of country houses. Only 
Vaekehu’s mittens were of dye, not of silk; and 
they had been paid for, not in money, but the 
cooked flesh of men. It came in my mind with a 
clap, what she could think of it herself, and whether 
at heart, perhaps, she might not regret and aspire 
after the barbarous and stirring past. But when I 
asked Stanislao — “‘ Ah!” said he, “she is con- 
tent; she is religious, she passes all her days with 
the sisters.” 

Stanislao (Stanislaos, with the final consonant 
evaded after the Polynesian habit) was sent by 
Bishop Dordillon to South America, and there edu- 
cated by the fathers. His French is fluent, his talk 
sensible and spirited, and in his capacity of ganger- 
in-chief, he is of excellent service to the French. 
‘With the prestige of his name and family, and 
with the stick when needful, he keeps the natives 


THE MARQUESAS gi 


working and the roads passable. Without Stanislao 
and the convicts, I am in doubt what would become 
of the present regimen in Nuka-hiva; whether the 
highways might not be suffered to close up, the 
pier to wash away, and the Residency to fall piece- 
meal about the ears of impotent officials. And yet 
though the hereditary favourer, and one of the 
chief props of French authority, he has always an 
eye upon the past. He showed me where the old 
public place had stood, still to be traced by random 
piles of stone; told me how great and fine it was, 
and surrounded on all sides by populous houses, 
whence, at the beating of the drums, the folk 
crowded to make holiday. The drum-beat of the 
Polynesian has a strange and gloomy stimulation 
for the nerves of all. White persons feel it — at 
these precipitate sounds their hearts beat faster; 
and, according to old residents, its effect on the 
natives was extreme. Bishop Dordillon might en- 
treat; Temoana himself command and threaten; 
at the note of the drum wild instincts triumphed. 
And now it might beat upon these ruins, and who 
should assemble? The houses are down, the people 
dead, their lineage extinct; and the sweepings and 
fugitives of distant bays and islands encamp upon 
their graves. The decline of the dance Stanislao 
especially laments. “ Chaque pays a ses coutumes,” 
said he; but in the report of any gendarme, per- 
haps corruptly eager to increase the number of 
délits and the instruments of his own power, cus- 
tom after custom is placed on the expurgatorial 
index. “ Tenez, une danse qui n'est pas permise,” 


92 IN ARLE SOU LAS 


said Stanislao: “je ne sais pas pourquot, elle est 
trés jolie, elle va comme ga,” and sticking his um- 
brella upright in the road, he sketched the steps 
and gestures. All his criticisms of the present, all 
his regrets for the past, struck me as temperate and 
sensible. The short term of office of the Resident 
he thought the chief defect of the administration; 
that officer having scarce begun to be efficient ere he 
was recalled. I thought I gathered, too, that he 
regarded with some fear the coming change from a 
naval to a civil governor. I am sure at least that 
I regard it so myself; for the civil servants of 
France have never appeared to any foreigner as at 
all the flower of their country, while her naval offi- 
cers may challenge competition with the world. In 
all his talk, Stanislao was particular to speak of his 
own country as a land of savages; and when he 
stated an opinion of his own, it was with some 
apologetic preface, alleging that he was “a savage 
who had travelled.” There was a deal, in this 
elaborate modesty, of honest pride. Yet there was 
something in the precaution that saddened me; and 
I could not but fear he was only forestalling a taunt 
that he had heard too often. 

I recall with interest two interviews with Stan- 
islao. The first was a certain afternoon of tropic 
rain, which we passed together in the veranda of 
the club; talking at times with heightened voices 
as the showers redoubled overhead, passing at times 
into the billiard-room, to consult, in the dim, cloudy 
daylight, that map of the world which forms its 
chief adornment. He was naturally ignorant of 


A, 
at 


THE MARQUESAS 93 


English history, so that I had much of news to com- 
municate. The story of Gordon I told him in full, 
and many episodes of the Indian Mutiny, Luck- 
now, the second battle of Cawnpore, the relief of 
Arrah, the death of poor Spottiswoode, and Sir 
Hugh Rose’s hotspur, midland campaign. He was 
intent to hear; his brown face, strongly marked 
with small-pox, kindled and changed with each 
vicissitude. His eyes glowed with the reflected 
light of battle; his questions were many and intelli- 
gent, and it was chiefly these that sent us so often 
to the map. But it is of our parting that I keep the 
strongest sense. We were to sail on the morrow, 
and the night had fallen, dark, gusty, and rainy, 
when we stumbled up the hill to bid farewell to 
Stanislao. He had already loaded us with gifts; 
but more were waiting. We sat about the table 
over cigars and green cocoa-nuts; claps of wind 
blew through the house and extinguished the lamp, 
which was always instantly relighted with a single 
match; and these recurrent intervals of darkness 
were felt as a relief. For there was something 
painful and embarrassing in the kindness of that 
separation. ‘ Ah, vous devriez rester ict, mon cher 
ami!’ cried Stanislao. “Vous étes les gens qu il 
faut pour les Kanaques; vous étes doux, vous et 
votre famille; vous seriez obéis dans toutes les 
iles.’ We had been civil; not always that, my con- 
science told me, and never anything beyond; and 
all this to-do is a measure, not of our considerate- 
ness, but of the want of it in others. The rest of 
the evening, on ‘as Vakehu’s and back as far as to 


\ AN, he 


94. IN: THES O49 BHieaaers 


the pier, Stanislao walked with my arm and shel- 
tered me with his umbrella; and after the boat had 
put off, we could still distinguish, in the murky 
darkness, his gestures of farewell. His words, if 
there were any, were drowned by the rain and 
the loud surf. 

I have mentioned presents, a vexed question in 
the South Seas; and one which well illustrates the 
common, ignorant habit of regarding races in a 
lump. In many quarters the Polynesian gives only 
to receive. I have visited islands where the popula- 
tion mobbed me for all the world like dogs after the 
waggon of cat’s-meat ; and where the frequent prop- 
osition, ““ You my pleni”’ (friend), or (with more 
of pathos) “ You all ’e same my father,” must be 
received with hearty laughter and a shout. And 
perhaps everywhere, among the greedy and rapa- 
cious, a gift is regarded as a sprat to catch a whale. 
It is the habit to give gifts and to receive returns, 
and such characters, complying with the custom, 
will look to it nearly that they do not lose. But for 
persons of a different stamp the statement must 
be reversed. The shabby Polynesian is anxious till 
he has received the return gift; the generous is 
uneasy until he has made it. The first is disap- 
pointed if you have not given more than he; the 
second is miserable if he thinks he has given less 
than you. This is my experience; if it clash with 
that of others, I pity their fortune, and praise mine: 
the circumstance cannot change what I have seen, 
‘nor lessen what I have received. And indeed I 
find that those who oppose me often argue from 


THE MARQUESAS 95 


a ground of singular presumptions; comparing 
Polynesians with an ideal person, compact of gen- 
erosity and gratitude, whom I never had the pleas- 
ure of encountering; and forgetting that what is 
almost poverty to us is wealth almost unthinkable 
to them. I will give one instance: I chanced to 
speak with consideration of these gifts of Stanis- 
lao’s with a certain clever man, a great hater and 
contemner of Kanakas. “Well! what were they?” 
he cried. “A pack of old men’s beards. Trash!” 
And the same gentleman, some half an hour later, 
being upon a different train of thought, dwelt at 
length on the esteem in which the Marquesans 
held that sort of property, how they preferred it 
to all others except land, and what fancy prices 
it would fetch. Using his own figures, I computed 
that, in this commodity alone, the gifts of Vaekehu 
and Stanislao represented between two and three 
hundred dollars; and the queen’s official salary is 
of two hundred and forty in the year. 

But generosity on the one hand, and conspicuous 
meanness on the other, are in the South Seas, as at 
home, the exception. It is neither with any hope of 
gain, nor with any lively wish to please, that the or- 
dinary Polynesian chooses and presents his gifts. A 
plain social duty lies before him, which he performs 
correctly, but without the least enthusiasm. And 
we shall best understand his attitude of mind, if we 
examine our own to the cognate absurdity of mar- 
riage presents. There we give without any special 
thought of a return; yet if the circumstance arise, 
and the return be withheld, we shall judge our- 


96) INC TT. EOE! SOO VR Sse 


selves insulted. We give them usually without 
affection, and almost never with a genuine desire 
to please; and our gift is rather a mark of our own 
status than a measure of our love to the recipients. 
So in a great measure and with the common run 
of the Polynesians: their gifts are formal; they 
imply no more than social recognition; and they 
are made and reciprocated, as we pay and return 
our morning visits. And the practice of marking 
and measuring events and sentiments by presents 
is universal in the island world. A gift plays with 
them the part of stamp and seal; and has entered 
profoundly into the mind of islanders. Peace and 
war, marriage, adoption and naturalisation, are 
celebrated or declared by the acceptance or the re- 
fusal of gifts; and it is as natural for the islander 
to bring a gift as for us to carry a card-case. 





CHAPTER X 


A PORTRAIT AND A STORY 


the late bishop, Father Dordillon, ‘‘ Monsei- 

gneur,”’ as he is still almost universally called, 
Vicar-Apostolic of the Marquesas and Bishop of 
Cambysopolis im partibus. Everywhere in the 
islands, among all classes and races, this fine, old, 
kindly, cheerful fellow is remembered with affec- 
tion and respect. His influence with the natives 
was paramount. They reckoned him the highest of 
men — higher than an admiral; brought him their 
money to keep; took his advice upon their pur- 
chases; nor would they plant trees upon their own 
land till they had the approval of the father of the 
islands. During the time of the French exodus he 
singly represented Europe, living in the Residency, 
and ruling by the hand of Temoana. The first 
roads were made under his auspices and by his 
persuasion. The old road between Hatiheu and 
Anaho was got under way from either side on the 
ground that it would be pleasant for an evening 
promenade, and brought to completion by working 
on the rivalry of the two villages. The priest 
would boast in Hatiheu of the progress made in 

: 7 


| HAVE had occasion several times to name 


Aa ON 
SC So 


98 0\N TABS OU Bit See 


Anaho, and he would tell the folk of Anaho, “ If 
you don’t take care, your neighbours will be over 
the hill before you are at the top.” It could not be 
so done to-day; it could then; death, opium, and 
depopulation had not gone so far; and the people 
of Hatiheu, I was told, still vied with each other 
in fine attire, and used to go out by families, in the 
cool of the evening, boat-sailing and racing in the 
bay. There seems some truth at least in the com- 
mon view, that this joint reign of Temoana and the 
bishop was the last and brief golden age of the 
Marquesas. But the civil power returned, the mis- 
sion was packed out of the Residency at twenty- 
four hours’ notice, new methods supervened, and 
the golden age (whatever it quite was) came to 
an end. It is the strongest proof of Father Dor- 
dillon’s prestige that it survived, seemingly with- 
out loss, this hasty deposition. , 

His method with the natives was extremely 
mild. Among these barbarous children he still 
played the part of the smiling father; and he was 
careful to observe, in all indifferent matters, the 
Marquesan etiquette. ‘Thus, in the singular system 
of artificial kinship, the bishop had been adopted 
by Vaekehu as a grandson; Miss Fisher, of Hati- 
heu, as a daughter. From that day, Monseigneur 
never addressed the young lady except as his 
mother, and closed his letters with the formalities 
of a dutiful son. With Europeans he could be 
strict, even to the extent of harshness. He made 
ho distinction against heretics, with whom he was 
on friendly terms; but the rules of his own Church 


THE MARQUESAS 99 


he would see observed; and once at least he had a 
white man clapped in jail for the desecration of a 
saint’s day. But even this rigour, so intolerable to 
laymen, so irritating to Protestants, could not shake 
his popularity. We shall best conceive him by ex- 
amples nearer home; we may all have known some 
divine of the old school in Scotland, a liberal Sab- 
batarian, a stickler for the letter of the law, who 
was yet in private modest, innocent, genial, and 
mirthful. Much such a man, it seems, was Father 
Dordillon. And his popularity bore a test yet 
stronger. He had the name, and probably deserved 
it, of a shrewd man in business and one that made 
the mission pay. Nothing so much stirs up resent- 
ment as the inmixture in commerce of religious 
bodies; but even rival traders spoke well of 
Monseigneur. 

His character is best portrayed in the story of 
the days of his decline. A time came when, from 
the failure of sight, he must desist from his literary 
labours; his Marquesan hymns, grammars, and 
dictionaries; his scientific papers, lives of saints, 
and devotional poetry. He cast about for a new 
interest: pitched on gardening, and was to be seen 
all day, with spade and waterpot, in his childlike 
eagerness, actually running between the borders. 
Another step of decay, and he must leave his 
garden also. Instantly a new occupation was de- 
vised, and he sat in the mission cutting paper 
flowers and wreaths. His diocese was not great 
enough for his activity; the churches of the Mar- 
quesas were papered with his handiwork, and still 


10 IN: THE \SOUT Hehe 


he must be making more. ‘“ Ah,” said he, smiling, 
“when I am dead what a fine time you will have 
clearing out my trash!” He had been dead about 
six months; but I was pleased to see some of his. 
trophies still exposed, and looked upon them with 
a smile: the tribute (if I have read his cheerful 
character aright) which he would have preferred 
to any useless tears. Disease continued progres- 
sively to disable him; he who had clambered so 
stalwartly over the rude rocks of the Marquesas, 
bringing peace to warfaring clans, was for some 
time carried in a chair between the mission and the 
church, and at last confined to bed, impotent with 
dropsy, and tormented with bed-sores and sciatica. 
Here he lay two months without complaint; and 
on the 11th January, 1888, in the seventy-ninth 
year of his life, and the thirty-fourth of his labours 
in the Marquesas, passed away. 

Those who have a taste for hearing missions, 
Protestant or Catholic, decried, must seek their 
pleasure elsewhere than in my pages. Whether 
Catholic or Protestant, with all their gross blots, 
with all their deficiency of candour, of humour, and 
of common-sense, the missionaries are the best and 
the most useful whites in the Pacific. This is a 
subject which will follow us throughout; but there 
is one part of it that may conveniently be treated 
here. The married and the celibate missionary, 
each has his particular advantage and defect. The 
married missionary, taking him at the best, may 
offer to the native what he is much in want of —a 
higher picture of domestic life; but the woman at 


THE MARQUESAS. | 1or 


his elbow tends to keep him in touch with Europe 
and out of touch with Polynesia, and to perpetuate, 
and even to ingrain, parochial decencies far best 
forgotten. The mind of the female missionary 
tends, for instance, to be continually busied about 
dress. She can be taught with extreme difficulty to 
think any costume decent but that to which she 
grew accustomed on Clapham Common; and to 
gratify this prejudice, the native is put to useless 
expense, his mind is tainted with the morbidities of 
Europe, and his health is set in danger. The celi- 
bate missionary, on the other hand, and whether at 
best or worst, falls readily into native ways of life; 
to which he adds too commonly what is either a 
mark of celibate man at large, or an inheritance 
from medizval saints—I mean slovenly habits 
and an unclean person. There are, of course, 
degrees in this; and the sister (of course, and all 
honour to her) is as fresh as a lady at a ball. For 
the diet there is nothing to be said — it must amaze 
and shock the Polynesian — but for the adoption 
of native habits there is much. “ Chaque pays a ses 
coutumes,” said Stanislao; these it is the mission- 
ary’s delicate task to modify; and the more he can 
do so from within, and from a native standpoint, 
the better he will do his work; and here I think the 
Catholics have sometimes the advantage; in the 
Vicariate of Dordillon, IJ am sure they had it. I 
have heard the bishop blamed for his indulgence 
to the natives, and above all because he did not rage 
with sufficient energy against cannibalism. It was 
a part of his policy to live among the natives like an 


ioe INS THE cSO{UM HSB ihaAs 


elder brother; to follow where he could; to lead 
where it was necessary; never to drive; and to 
encourage the growth of new habits, instead of 
violently rooting up the old. And it might be 
better, in the long run, if this policy were always 
followed. 

It might be supposed that native missionaries 
would prove more indulgent, but the reverse is 
found to be the case. The new broom sweeps 
clean; and the white missionary of to-day is often 
embarrassed by the bigotry of his native coadjutor. 
What else should we expect? On some islands, 
sorcery, polygamy, human sacrifice, and tobacco- 
smoking have been prohibited, the dress of the 
native has been modified, and himself warned in 
strong terms against rival sects of Christianity; 
all by the same man, at the same period of time, 
and with the like authority. By what criterion is 
the convert to distinguish the essential from the 
unessential? He swallows the nostrum whole; 
there has been no play of mind, no instruction, 
and, except for some brute utility in the prohibi- 
tions, no advance. To call things by their proper 
names, this is teaching superstition. It is unfor- 
tunate to use the word; so few people have read 
history, and so many have dipped into little athe- 
istic manuals, that the majority will rush to a 
conclusion, and suppose the labour lost. And far 
from that: these semi-spontaneous superstitions, 
varying with the sect of the original evangelist 


_2@hd the customs of the island, are found in prac- 


“tice to be highly fructifying; and in particular 


THE MARQUESAS 103 


tnose who have learned and who go forth again to 
teach them offer an example to the world. ‘The 
best specimen of the Christian hero that I ever met 
was one of these native missionaries. He had 
saved two lives at the risk of his own; like Nathan, 
he had bearded a tyrant in his hour of blood; when 
a whole white population fled, he alone stood to his 
duty; and his behaviour under domestic sorrow 
with which the public has no concern filled the 
beholder with sympathy and admiration. A poor 
little smiling laborious man he looked; and you 
would have thought he had nothing in him but 
that of which indeed he had too much — facile 
good-nature.! 

It chances that the only rivals of Monseigneur 
and his mission in the Marquesas were certain 
of these brown-skinned evangelists, natives from 
Hawaii. I know not what they thought of Father 
Dordillon: they are the only class I did not ques- 
tion; but I suspect the prelate to have regarded 
them askance, for he was eminently human. Dur- 
ing my stay at Tai-o-hae, the time of the yearly 
holiday came round at the girls’ school; and a 
whole fleet of whale-boats came from Uapu to 
take the daughters of that island home. On board 
of these was Kauwealoha, one of the pastors, a fine, 
rugged old gentleman, of that leonine type so com- 
mon in Hawaii. He paid me a visit in the Casco, 
and there entertained me with a tale of one of his 
colleagues, Kekela, a missionary in the great can- 


1 The reference is to Maka, the Hawaiian missionary, at Butari- 
tari, in the Gilberts. 


104 IN THE: SOUTH "Sta 


nibal isle of Hiva-oa. It appears that shortly after 
a kidnapping visit from a Peruvian slaver, the boats 
of an American whaler put into a bay upon that 
island, were attacked, and made their escape with 
difficulty, leaving their mate, a Mr. Whalon, in the 
hands of the natives. The captive, with his arms 
bound behind his back, was cast into a house; and 
the chief announced the capture to Kekela. And 
here I begin to follow the version of Kauwealoha; 
it is a good specimen of Kanaka English; and the 
reader is to conceive it delivered with violent em- 
phasis and speaking pantomime. 

“TI got ’Melican mate,’ the chief he say. ‘ What 
you go do ’Melican mate?’ Kekela he say. “I go 
make fire, I go kill, I go eat him,’ he say; * you 
come to-mollow eat piece.’ ‘I no want eat ’Meli- 
can mate!’ Kekela he say; ‘why you want?’ ‘This 
bad shippee, this slave shippee,’ the chief he say. 
‘One time a shippee he come from Pelu, he take 
away plenty Kanaka, he take away my son. ’Meli- 
can mate he bad man. I go eat him; you eat 
piece. ‘I no want eat ’Melican mate!’ Kekela he 
say; and he cly—all night he’cly! To-mollow 
Kekela he get up, he put on blackee coat, he go 
see chief; he see Missa Whela, him hand tie’ like 
this. (Pantomime.) Kekela he cly. He say chief: 
— ‘ Chief, you like things of mine? you like whale- 
boat?’ ‘Yes, he say. ‘ You like file-a’m?’ (fire- 
arms). ‘Yes,’ he say. ‘ You like blackee coat?’ 
‘Yes,’ he say. Kekela he take Missa Whela by 
he shoul’a’ (shoulder), he take him light out house; 
he give chief he whale-boat, he file-a’m, he blackee 


THE MARQUESAS ios 


coat. He take Missa Whela he house, make him 
sit down with he wife and chil’en. Missa Whela 
all-the-same pelison (prison); he wife, he chil’en 
in Amelica; he cly —O, he cly. Kekela he solly. 
One day Kekela he see ship. (Pantomime.) He 
say Missa Whela, ‘Ma’ Whala?’ Missa Whela 
he say, “ Yes.’ Kanaka they begin go down beach. 
Kekela he get eleven Kanaka, get oa’ (oars), get 
evely thing. He say Missa Whela, ‘ Now you go 
quick.’ They jump in whale-boat. ‘Now you 
low!’ Kekela he say: ‘you low quick, quick!’ 
(Violent pantomime, and a change indicating that 
the narrator has left the boat and returned to the 
beach.) All the Kanaka they say, ‘How! ’Meli- 
can mate he go away?’ — jump in boat; low afta. 
(Violent pantomime and change again to boat.) 
Kekela he say, ‘ Low quick!’ ” 

Here I think Kauwealoha’s pantomime had con- 
fused me; I have no more of his tpsissima verba; 
and can but add, in my own less spirited manner, 
that the ship was reached, Mr. Whalon taken 
aboard, and Kekela returned to his charge among 
the cannibals. But how unjust it is to repeat the 
stumblings of a foreigner in a language only partly 
acquired! A thoughtless reader might conceive 
Kauwealoha and his colleague to be a species of 
amicable baboon; but I have here the antidote. 
In return for his act of gallant charity, Kekela 
was.presented by the American Government with 
a sum of money, and by President Lincoln per- 
sonally with a gold watch. From his letter of 
thanks, written in his own tongue, I give the 


706.) DN AES OO @ Hie 


following extract. I do not envy the man who 
can read it without emotion. 


When I saw one of your countrymen, a citizen of your 
great nation, ill-treated, and about to be baked and eaten, as a 
pig is eaten, I ran to save him, full of pity and grief at the 
evil deed of these benighted people. I gave my boat for the 
stranger’s life. This boat came from James Hunnewell, a gift 
of friendship. It became the ransom of this countryman of 
yours, that he might not be eaten by the savages who knew not 
Jehovah. This was Mr. Whalon, and the date, Jan. 14, 1864. 

As to this friendly deed of mine in saving Mr. Whalon, its 
seed came from your great land, and was brought by certain 
of your countrymen, who had received the love of God. It 
was planted in Hawaii, and I brought it to plant in this land 
and in these dark regions, that they might receive the root of 
all that is good and true, which is Jove. 

I. Love to Jehovah. 

2. Love to self. 

3- Love to our neighbour. 

If a man have a sufficiency of these three, he is good and 
holy, like his God, Jehovah, in his triune character (Father, 
Son, and Holy Ghost), one-three, three-one. If he have two 
and wants one, it is not well; and if he have one and wants two, 
this, indeed, is not well; but if he cherishes all three, then is 
he holy, indeed, after the manner of the Bible. 

This is a great thing for your great nation to boast of, 
before all the nations of the earth. From your great landa 
most precious seed was brought to the land of darkness. It 
was planted here, not by means of guns and men-of-war and 
threatenings. It was planted by means of the ignorant, the 
neglected, the despised. Such was the introduction of the 
word of the Almighty God into this group of Nuuhiwa. 
Great is my debt to Americans, who have taught me all 
things pertaining to this life and to that which is to come. 

How shall I repay your great kindness to me? Thus 
David asked of Jehovah, and thus I ask of you, the President 
of the United States. This my only payment — that which I 
have received of the Lord, love — (aloha). 


CHAPTER XI 


LONG-PIG — A CANNIBAL HIGH PLACE 


OTHING more strongly arouses our dis- 
N gust than cannibalism, nothing so surely 

unmortars a society; nothing, we might 
plausibly argue, will so harden and degrade the 
minds of those that practise it. And yet we our- 
selves make much the same appearance in the eyes 
of the Buddhist and the vegetarian. We consume 
the carcases of creatures of like appetites, pas- 
sions, and organs with ourselves; we feed on 
babes, though not our own; and the slaughter- 
house resounds daily with screams of pain and 
fear. We distinguish, indeed; but the unwilling- 
ness of many nations to eat the dog, an animal 
with whom we live on terms of the next inti- 
macy, shows how precariously the distinction is 
grounded. The pig is the main element of animal 
food among the islands; and I had many occa- 
sions, my mind being quickened by my cannibal 
surroundings, to observe his character and the 
manner of his death. Many islanders live with 
their pigs as we do with our dogs; both crowd 
around the hearth with equal freedom; and the 
island pig is a fellow of activity, enterprise, and 


108 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


sense. He husks his own cocoa-nuts, and (1 am 
told) rolls them into the sun to burst; he is the 
terror of the shepherd. Mrs. Stevenson, senior, 
has seen one fleeing to the woods with a lamb in 
his mouth; and I saw another come rapidly (and 
erroneously) to the conclusion that the Casco was 
going down, and swim through the flush water 
to the rail in search of an escape. It was told 
us in childhood that pigs cannot swim; I have 
known one to leap overboard, swim five hundred 
yards to shore, and return to the house of his 
original owner. I was once, at Tautira, a pig- 
master on a considerable scale; at first, in my 
pen, the utmost good feeling prevailed; a little 
sow with a belly-ache came and appealed to us for 
help in the manner of a child; and there was 
one shapely black boar, whom we called Catholi- 
cus, for he was a particular present from the 
Catholics of the village, and who early displayed 
the marks of courage and friendliness; no other 
animal, whether dog or pig, was suffered to ap- 
proach him at his food, and for human beings he 
showed a full measure of that toadying fondness, 
so common in the lower animals, and possibly their 
chief title to the name. One day, on visiting my 
piggery, I was amazed to see Catholicus draw back 
from my approach with cries of terror; and if I 
was amazed at the change, I was truly embarrassed 
when I learnt its reason. One of the pigs had 
been that morning killed; Catholicus had seen the 
murder, he had discovered he was dwelling in the 
shambles, and from that time his confidence and 


THE MARQUESAS 109 


his delight in life were ended. We still reserved 
him a long while, but he could not endure the 
sight of any two-legged creature, nor could we, 
under the circumstances, encounter his eye with- 
out confusion. I have assisted besides, by the ear, 
at the act of butchery itself; the victim’s cries of 
pain I think I could have borne, but the execution 
was mismanaged, and his expression of terror was 
contagious: that small heart moved to the same 
tune with ours. Upon such “ dread foundations ” 
the life of the European reposes, and yet the 
European is among the less cruel of races. The 
paraphernalia of murder, the preparatory brutali- 
ties of his existence, are all hid away; an extreme 
sensibility reigns upon the surface; and ladies 
will faint at the recital of one tithe of what they 
daily expect of their butchers. Some will be even 
crying out upon me in their hearts for the coarse- 
ness of this paragraph. And so with the island 
cannibals. They were not cruel; apart from this 
custom, they are a race of the most kindly; rightly 
speaking, to cut a man’s flesh after he is dead is 
far less hateful than to oppress him whilst he 
lives; and even the victims of their appetite were 
gently used in life and suddenly and painlessly 
despatched at last. In island circles of refinement 
it was doubtless thought bad taste to expatiate on 
what was ugly in the practice. 

Cannibalism is traced from end to end of the 
Pacific, from the Marquesas to New Guinea, from 
New Zealand to Hawaii, here in the lively haunt 
of its exercise, there by scanty but significant 


mo INS THE: SOUM Has rAS 


survivals. Hawaii is the most doubtful. We find 
cannibalism chronicled in Hawaii, only in the his- 
tory of a single war, where it seems to have been 
thought exceptional, as in the case of mountain 
outlaws, such as fell by the hand of Theseus. In 
Tahiti, a single circumstance survived, but that 
appears conclusive. In historic times, when human 
oblation was made in the marae, the eyes of the 
victim were formally offered to the chief: a deli- 
cacy to the leading guest. All Melanesia appears 
tainted. In Micronesia, in the Marshalls, with 
which my acquaintance is no more than that of 
a tourist, I could find no trace at all; and even 
in the Gilbert zone I long looked and asked in 
vain. I was told tales indeed of men who had 
been eaten in a famine; but these were nothing 
to my purpose, for the same thing is done under 
the same stress by all kindreds and generations of 
men. At last, in some manuscript notes of Dr. 
Turner’s, which I was allowed to consult at Malua, 
I came on one damning evidence: on the island 
of Onoatoa the punishment for theft was to be 
killed and eaten. How shall we account for the 
universality of the practice over so vast an area, 
among people of such varying civilisation, and, 
with whatever intermixture, of such different 
blood? What circumstance is common to them 
all, but that they lived on islands destitute, or 
very nearly so, of animal food? I can never 
find it in my appetite that man was meant to live 
on vegetables only. When our stores ran low 
among the islands, I grew to weary for the re- 


THE. MARQUESAS u1 


current day when economy allowed us to open 
another tin of miserable mutton. And in at least 
one ocean language, a particular word denotes 
that a man is “hungry for fish,” having reached 
that stage when vegetables can no longer satisfy, 
and his soul, like those of the Hebrews in the 
desert, begins to lust after flesh-pots. Add to 
this the evidences of over-population and imminent 
famine already adduced, and I think we see some 
ground of indulgence for the island cannibal. 

It is right to look at both sides of any question; 
but I am far from making the apology of this 
worse than bestial vice. The higher Polynesian 
races, such as the Tahitians, Hawaiians, and 
Samoans, had one and all’ outgrown, and some 
of them had in part forgot, the practice, before 
Cook or Bougainville had shown a topsail in their 
waters. It lingered only in some low islands 
where life was difficult to maintain, and among 
inveterate savages like the New Zealanders or 
the Marquesans. The Marquesans intertwined 
man-eating with the whole texture of their lives; 
long-pig was in a sense their currency and sacra- 
ment; it formed the hire of the artist, illustrated 
public events, and was the occasion and attrac- 
tion of a feast. To-day they are paying the 
penalty of this bloody commixture. The civil 
power, in its crusade against man-eating, has had 
to examine one after another all Marquesan arts 
and pleasures, has found them one after another 
tainted with a cannibal element, and one after 
another has placed them on the proscript list. 


tio.) IN: GHE SOUTH Sie 


Their art of tattooing stood by itself, the exe- 
cution exquisite, the designs most beautiful and 
intricate; nothing more handsomely sets off a 
handsome man; it may cost some pain in the 
beginning, but I doubt if it be near so painful 
in the long run, and I am sure it is far more 
becoming than the ignoble European practice of 
tight-lacing among women. And now it has been 
found needful to forbid the art. Their songs and 
dances were numerous {and the law has had to 
abolish them by the dozen). They now face 
empty-handed the tedium of their uneventful days; 
and who shall pity them? The least rigorous will 
say that they were justly served. 

Death alone could not satisfy Marquesan ven- 
geance: the flesh must be eaten. The chief who 
seized Mr. Whalon preferred to eat him; and he 
thought he had justified the wish when he ex- 
plained it was a vengeance. Two or three years 
ago, the people of a valley seized and slew a 
wretch who had offended them. His offence, it 
is to be supposed, was dire; they could not bear 
to leave their vengeance incomplete, and, under 
the eyes of the French, they did not dare to hold 
a public festival. The body was accordingly di- 
vided; and every man retired to his own house 
to consummate the rite in secret, carrying his pro- 
portion of the dreadful meat in a Swedish match- 
box. The barbarous substance of the drama and 
the European properties employed offer a seizing 
contrast to the imagination. Yet more striking is 
another incident of the very year when I was there 


THE MARQUESAS 133 


myself, 1888. In the spring, a man and woman 
skulked about the school-house in Hiva-oa till they 
found a particular child alone. Him they ap- 
proached with honeyed words and carneying man- 
ners — “ You are So-and-so, son of So-and-so?”’ 
they asked; and caressed and beguiled him deeper 
in the woods. Some instinct woke in the child’s 
bosom, or some look betrayed the horrid purpose 
of his deceivers. He sought to break from them; 
he screamed; and they, casting off the mask, seized 
him the more strongly and began to run. His cries 
were heard; his schoolmates, playing not far off, 
came running to the rescue; and the sinister couple 
fled and vanished in the woods. They were never 
identified; no prosecution followed; but it was 
currently supposed they had some grudge against 
the boy’s father, and designed to eat him in re- 
venge. All over the islands, as at home among 
our own ancestors, it will be observed that the 
avenger takes no particular heed to strike an in- 
dividual. A family, a class, a village, a whole 
valley or island, a whole race of mankind, share 
equally the guilt of any member. So, in the above 
story, the son was to pay,the penalty for his father ; 
so Mr. Whalon, the mate of an American whaler, 
was to bleed and be eaten for the misdeeds of a 
Peruvian slaver. I am reminded of an incident 
in Jaluit in the Marshall group, which was told 
me by an eye-witness, and which I tell here again 
for the strangeness of the scene. Two men had 
awakened the animosity of the Jaluit chiefs; and 
it was their wives who were selected to be pun- 
8 


H4/INSTHE SOUTH Saas 


ished. A single native served as executioner. 
Early in the morning, in the face of a large con- 
course of spectators, he waded out upon the reef 
between his victims. These neither complained 
nor resisted ; accompanied their destroyer patiently ; 
stooped down, when they had waded deep enough, 
at his command; and he (laying one hand upon 
the shoulders of each) held them under water till 
they drowned. Doubtless, although my informant 
did not tell me so, their families would be lament- 
ing aloud upon the beach. 

It was from Hatiheu that I paid my first vist to 
a cannibal high place. 

The day was sultry and clouded. Drenching 
tropical showers succeeded bursts of sweltering 
sunshine. The green pathway of the road wound 
steeply upward. As we went, our little school-boy 
guide a little ahead of us, Father Simeon had his 
portfolio in his hand, and named the trees for me, 
and read aloud from his notes the abstract of their 
virtues. Presently the road, mounting, showed us 
the vale of Hatiheu on a larger scale; and the 
priest, with occasional reference to our guide, 
pointed out the boundaries and told me the names 
of the larger tribes that lived at perpetual war in 
the old days; one on the north-east, one along the 
beach, one behind upon the mountain. With a 
survivor of this latter clan Father Simeon had 
spoken; until the pacification he had never been 
to the sea’s edge, nor, if I remember exactly, 
eaten of sea-fish. Each in its own district, the 
septs lived cantoned and beleaguered. One step 


THE MARQUESAS u15 


without the boundaries ~was to affront death. If 
famine came, the men must out to the woods to 
gather chestnuts and small fruits; even as to this 
day, if the parents are backward in their weekly 
doles, school must be broken up and the scholars 
sent foraging. But in the old days, when there 
was trouble in one clan, there would be activity 
in ali its neighbours; the woods would be laid 
full of ambushes; and he who went after vege- 
tables for himself might remain to be a joint for 
his hereditary foes. Nor was the pointed occasion 
needful. A dozen different natural signs and social 
junctures called this people to the war-path and 
the cannibal hunt. Let one of chiefly rank have 
finished his tattooing, the wife of one be near 
upon her time, two of the debouching streams have 
deviated nearer on the beach of Hatiheu, a certain 
bird have been heard to sing, a certain ominous 
formation of cloud observed above the northern 
sea; and instantly the arms were oiled, and the 
man-hunters swarmed into the wood to lay their 
fratricidal ambuscades. It appears besides that 
occasionally, perhaps in famine, the priest would 
shut himself in his house, where he lay for a 
stated period like a person dead. When he came 
forth it was to run for three days through the 
territory of the clan, naked and starving, and to 
sleep at night alone in the high place. It was now 
the turn of the others to keep the house, for to 
encounter the priest upon his rounds was death. 
On the eve of the fourth day the time of the 
running was over; the priest returned to his roof, 


m6 IN VPHE SOU he Se 


the laymen came forth, and in the morning the 
number of the victims was announced. I have 
this tale of the priest on one authority —I think 
a good one— but I set it down with diffidence. 
The particulars are so striking that, had they been 
true, I almost think I must have heard them 
oftener referred to. Upon one point there seems 
to be no question: that the feast was sometimes 
furnished from within the clan. In times of 
scarcity, all who were not protected by their 
family connections —in the Highland expression, 
all the commons of the clan—had cause to 
tremble. It was vain to resist, it was useless to 
flee. They were begirt upon all hands by canni- 
bals; and the oven was ready to smoke for them 
abroad in the country of their foes, or at home 
in the valley of their fathers. 

At a certain corner of the road our scholar-guide 
_ struck off to his left into the twilight of the forest. 
We were now on one of the ancient native roads, 
plunged in a high vault of wood, and clambering, 
it seemed, at random over boulders and dead trees; 
but the lad wound in and out and up and down 
without a check, for these paths are to the natives 
as marked as the king’s highway is to us; inso- 
much that, in the days of the man-hunt, it was 
their labour rather to block and deface than to 
improve them. In the crypt of the wood the air 
was clammy and hot and cold; overhead, upon 
the leaves, the tropical rain uproariously poured, 
but only here and there, as through holes in a 
leaky roof, a single drop would fall, and make a 


THE MARQUESAS 117 


spot upon my mackintosh. Presently the huge 
trunk of a banyan hove in sight, standing upon 
what seemed the ruins of an ancient fort; and our 
guide, halting and holding forth his arm, an- 
nounced that we had reached the paepae tapu. 
Paepae signifies a floor or platform such as a 
native house is built on; and even such a paepae 
—a paepae hae — may be called a paepae tapu in 
a lesser sense when it is deserted and becomes the 
haunt of spirits; but the public high place, such 
as I was now treading, was a thing on a great 
scale. As far as my eyes could pierce through the 
dark undergrowth, the floor of the forest was all 
paved. Three tiers of terrace ran on the slope of 
the hill; in front, a crumbling parapet contained 
the main arena; and the pavement of that was 
pierced and parcelled out with several wells and 
small enclosures. No trace remained of any super- 
structure, and the scheme of the amphitheatre was 
difficult to seize. I visited another in Hiva-oa, 
smaller but more perfect, where it was easy to 
follow rows of benches, and to distinguish isolated 
seats of honour for eminent persons; and where, 
on the upper platform, a single joist of the temple 
or dead-house still remained, its uprights richly 
carved. In the old days the high place was sed- 
ulously tended. No tree except the sacred banyan 
was suffered to encroach upon its grades, no dead 
leaf to rot upon the pavement. The stones were 
smoothly set, and I am told they were kept bright 
with oil. On all sides the guardians lay encamped 
in their subsidiary huts to watch and cleanse it. 


18 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


No other foot of man was suffered to draw near; 
only the priest, in the days of his running, came 
there to sleep — perhaps to dream of his ungodly 
errand; but, in the time of the feast, the clan 
trooped to the high place in a body, and each had 
his appointed seat. There were places for the 
chiefs, the drummers, the dancers, the women, and 
the priests. The drums, perhaps twenty strong, 
and some of them twelve feet high — continuously 
throbbed in time. In time the singers kept up their 
long-drawn, lugubrious, ululating song; in time, 
too, the dancers, tricked out in singular finery, 
stepped, leaped, swayed, and gesticulated, their 
plumed fingers fluttering in the air like butterflies. 
The sense of time, in all these ocean races, is ex- 
tremely perfect; and I conceive in such a festival 
that almost every sound and movement fell in one. 
So much the more unanimously must have grown 
the agitation of the feasters: so much the more 
wild must have been the scene to any European 
who could have beheld them there, in the strong 
sun and the strong shadow of the banyan, rubbed 
with saffron to throw in a more high relief the 
arabesque of the tattoo; the women bleached by 
days of confinement to a complexion almost Euro- 
pean; the chiefs crowned with silver plumes of 
old men’s beards and girt with kirtles of the hair 
of dead women. All manner of island food was 
meanwhile spread for the women and the com- 
mons; and, for those who were privileged to eat 
of it, there were carried up to the dead-house the 
baskets of long-pig. It is told that the feasts were 


THE MARQUESAS 11g 


long kept up; the people came from them brutishly 
exhausted with debauchery, and the chiefs heavy 
with their beastly food. There are certain senti- 
ments which we call emphatically human — deny- 
ing the honour of that name to those who lack 
them. In such feasts — particularly where the 
victim had been slain at home, and men banqueted 
on the poor clay of a comrade with whom they had 
played in infancy, or a woman whose favours they 
had shared — the whole body of these sentiments 
is outraged. To consider it too closely is to under- 
stand, if not to excuse, these fervours of self- 
righteous old ship-captains, who would man their 
guns, and open fire in passing, on a cannibal island. 

And yet it was strange. There, upon the spot, 
as I stood under the high, dripping vault of the 
forest, with the young priest on the one hand, in 
his kilted gown, and the bright-eyed Marquesan 
school-boy on the other, the whole business ap- 
peared infinitely distant, and fallen in the cold 
perspective and dry light of history. The bearing 
of the priest, perhaps, affected me. He smiled; 
he jested with the boy, the heir both of these 
feasters and their meat; he clapped his hands, and 
gave me a stave of one of the old, ill-omened 
choruses. Centuries might have come and gone 
since this slimy theatre was last in operation; and 
I beheld the place with no more emotion than I 
might have felt in visiting Stonehenge. In Hiva-oa, 
as I began to appreciate that the thing was still 
living and latent about my footsteps, and that it 
_ was still within the bounds of possibility that I 


“A : 





1100 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


might hear the cry of the trapped victim, my his- 
toric attitude entirely failed, and I was sensible of 
some repugnance for the natives. But here, too, 
the priests maintained their jocular attitude: rally- 
ing the cannibals as upon an eccentricity rather 
absurd than horrible; seeking, I should say, to 
shame them from the practice by good-natured ridi- 
cule, as we shame a child from stealing sugar. 
We may here recognise the temperate and saga- 
cious mind of Bishop Dordillon. 


CHAPTER XII 


THE STORY OF A PLANTATION 


Pr “A AAHAUKU, on the south-westerly coast 
of the island of Hiva-oa — Tahuku, say 
the slovenly whites — may be called the 

port of Atuona. It is a narrow and small anchor- 

age, set between low cliffy points, and opening 
above upon a woody valley: a little French fort, 
now disused and deserted, overhangs the valley 
and the inlet. Atuona itself, at the head of the 
next bay, is framed in a theatre of mountains, 
which dominate the more immediate setting of 
Taahauku and give the salient character of the 
scene. They are reckoned at no higher than four 
thousand feet; but Tahiti with eight thousand, 
and Hawaii with fifteen, can offer no such picture 
of abrupt, melancholy alps. In the morning, when 
the sun falls directly on their front, they stand 
like a vast wall: green to the summit, if by any 
chance the summit should be clear — watercourses 
here and there delineated on their face, as narrow 
as cracks. Towards afternoon, the light falls more 
obliquely, and the sculpture of the range comes 
in relief, huge gorges sinking into shadow, huge, 
tortuous buttresses standing edged with sun. At 


22 INV FPHE SOUP Hala 


all hours of the day they strike the eye with some 
new beauty, and the mind with the same menacing 
gloom. 

The mountains, dividing and deflecting the end- 
less airy deluge of the trade, are doubtless answer- 
able for the climate. A strong draught of wind 
blew day and night over the anchorage. Day and 
night the same fantastic and attenuated clouds fled 
across the heavens, the same dusky cap of rain . 
and vapour fell and rose on the mountain. The 
land-breezes came very strong and chill, and the 
sea, like the air, was in perpetual bustle. The 
swell crowded into the narrow anchorage like sheep 
into a fold; broke all along both sides, high on the 
one, low on the other; kept a certain blowhole 
sounding and smoking like a cannon; and spent 
itself at last upon the beach. 

On the side away from Atuona, the sheltering 
promontory was a nursery of cocoa-trees. Some 
were mere infants, none had attained to any size, 
none had yet begun to shoot skyward with that 
whip-like shaft of the mature palm. In the young 
trees the colour alters with the age and growth. 
Now all is of a grass-like hue, infinitely dainty; 
next the rib grows golden, the fronds remaining 
green as ferns; and then, as the trunk continues 
to mount and to assume its final hue of grey, the 
fans put on manlier and more decided depths of 
verdure, stand out dark upon the distance, glisten 
against the sun, and flash like silver fountains in 
the assault of the wind. In this young wood of 
Taahauku, all these hues and combinations were 


THE MARQUESAS 123 


exampled and repeated by the score. The trees 
grew pleasantly spaced upon a hilly sward, here 
and there interspersed with a rack for drying copra, 
or a tumble-down hut for storing it. Every here 
and there the stroller had a glimpse of the Casco 
tossing in the narrow anchorage below; and beyond 
he had ever before him the dark amphitheatre 
of the Atuona mountains and the cliffy bluff that 
closes it to seaward. The trade-wind moving in 
the fans made a ceaseless noise of summer rain; 
and from time to time, with the sound of a sudden 
and distant drum-beat, the surf would burst in a 
sea-cave. 

At the upper end of the inlet, its low, cliffy 
lining sinks, at both sides, into a beach. A copra 
warehouse stands in the shadow of the shoreside 
trees, flitted about for ever by a clan of dwarfish 
swallows; and a line of rails on a high wooden 
staging bends back into the mouth of the valley. 
Walking on this, the new-landed traveller becomes . 
aware of a broad fresh-water lagoon (one arm of 
which he crosses), and beyond, of a grove of noble 
palms, sheltering the house of the trader, Mr. 
Keane. Overhead, he cocoas join in a continuous 
and lofty roof; blackbirds are heard lustily sing- 
ing; the island cock springs his jubilant rattle and 
airs his golden plumage; cow-bells sound far and 
near in the grove; and when you sit in the broad 
veranda, lulled by this symphony, you may say to 
yourself, if you are able: “ Better fifty years of 
Europe...” Farther on, the floor of the valley 
is flat and green, and dotted here and there witb 


24 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


stripling cocoa-palms. Through the midst, with 
many changes of music, the river trots and brawls; 
and along its course, where we should look for 
willows, puraos grow in clusters, and make shadowy 
pools after an angler’s heart. A vale more rich 
and peaceful, sweeter air, a sweeter voice of rural 
sounds, I have found nowhere. One circumstance 
alone might strike the experienced: here is a con- 
venient beach, deep soil, good water, and yet no- 
where any paepaes, nowhere any trace of island 
habitation. 

It is but a few years since this valley was a 
place choked with jungle, the debatable land and 
battleground of cannibals. Two clans laid claim 
to it— neither could substantiate the claim, and 
the roads lay desert, or were only visited by men 
in arms. It is for this very reason that it wears 
now so smiling an appearance: cleared, planted, 
built upon, supplied with railways, boat-houses, 
and bath-houses. For, being no man’s land, it 
was the more readily ceded to a stranger. The 
stranger was Captain John Hart: Ima Hati, 
‘“ Broken-arm,” the natives call him, because 
when he first visited the islands his arm was in 
a sling. Captain Hart, a man of English birth 
but an American subject, had conceived the idea 
of cotton culture in the Marquesas during the 
American War, and was at first rewarded with 
success. His plantation at Anaho was highly 
productive; island cotton fetched a high price, 
and the natives used to debate which was the 
stronger power, Ima Hati or the French: de- 


THE MARQUESAS 125 


ciding in favour of the captain, because, though 
the French had the most ships, he had the more 
money. 

He marked Taahauku for a suitable site, ac- 
quired it, and offered the superintendence to Mr. 
Robert Stewart, a Fifeshire man, already some 
time in the islands, who had just been ruined by 
a war on Tauata. Mr. Stewart was somewhat 
averse to the adventure, having some acquaint- 
ance with Atuona and its notorious chieftain, 
Moipu. He had once landed there, he told me, 
about dusk, and found the remains of a man and 
woman partly eaten. On his starting and sicken- 
ing at the sight, one of Moipu’s young men picked 
up a human foot, and provocatively staring at the 
stranger, grinned and nibbled at the heel. None 
need be surprised if Mr. Stewart fled incontinently 
to the bush, lay there all night in a great horror of 
mind, and got off to sea again by daylight on the 
morrow. “It was always abad place, Atuona,’’ com- 
mented Mr. Stewart, in his homely Fifeshire voice. 
In spite of this dire introduction, he accepted the 
captain’s offer, was landed at Taahauku with three 
Chinamen, and proceeded to clear the jungle. 

War was pursued at that time, almost without 
interval, between the men of Atuona and the men 
of Haamau; and one day, from the opposite sides 
of the valley, battle —or I should rather say the 
noise of battle — raged all the afternoon: the shots 
and insults of the opposing clans passing from hill 
to hill over the heads of Mr. Stewart and his 
Chinamen. There was no genuine fighting; it 


1226 EN TBs OO) Egat as 


was like a bicker of school-boys, only some fool 
had given the children guns. One man died of 
his exertions in running, the only casualty. With 
night the shots and insults ceased; the men of 
Haamau withdrew; and victory, on some occult 
principle, was scored to Moipu. Perhaps, in con- 
sequence, there came a day when Moipu made a 
feast, and a party from Haamau came under safe- 
conduct to eat of it. These passed early by Taa- 
hauku, and some of Moipu’s young men were there 
to be a guard of honour. They were not long 
gone before there came down from Haamau, a 
man, his wife, and a girl of twelve, their daugh- 
ter, bringing fungus. Several Atuona lads were 
hanging round the store; but the day being one 
of truce none apprehended danger. The fungus 
was weighed and paid for; the man of Haamau 
proposed he should have his axe ground in the 
bargain; and Mr. Stewart demurring at the 
trouble, some of the Atuona lads offered to grind 
it for him, and set it on the wheel. While the 
axe was grinding, a friendly native whispered Mr. 
Stewart to have a care of himself, for there was 
trouble in hand; and, all at once, the man of 
Haamau was seized, and his head and arm stricken 
from his body, the head at one sweep of his own 
newly sharpened axe. In the first alert, the girl 
escaped among the cotton; and Mr. Stewart, hav- 
ing thrust the wife into the house and locked her 
in from the outside, supposed the affair was over. 
But the business had not passed without noise, 
and it reached the ears of an older girl who had 


eke ee MAR OTWE'S‘A'S 127 


loitered by the way, and who now came hastily 
down the valley, crying as she came for her father. 
Her, too, they seized and beheaded; I know not 
what they had done with the axe, it was a blunt 
knife that served their butcherly turn upon the 
girl; and the blood spurted in fountains and 
painted them from head to foot. Thus horrible 
from crime, the party returned to Atuona, carry- 
ing the heads to Moipu. It may be fancied how 
the feast broke up; but it is notable that the 
guests were honourably suffered to retire. These 
passed back through Taahauku in extreme dis- 
order; a little after the valley began to be over- 
run with shouting and triumphing braves; and a 
letter of warning coming at the same time to Mr. 
Stewart, he and his Chinamen took refuge with 
the Protestant missionary in Atuona. That night 
the store was gutted, and the bodies cast in a pit 
and covered with leaves. Three days later the 
schooner had come in; and things appearing 
quieter, Mr. Stewart and the captain landed in 
Taahauku to compute the damage and to view 
the grave, which was already indicated by the 
stench. While they were so employed, a party 
of Moipu’s young men, decked with red flannel 
to indicate martial sentiments, came over the hills 
from Atuona, dug up the bodies, washed them 
in the river, and carried them away on sticks. 
That night the feast began. 

Those who knew Mr. Stewart before this ex- 
perience declare the man to be quite altered. He 
stuck, however, to his post; and somewhat later, 


28 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


when the plantation was already well established, 
and gave employment to sixty Chinamen and 
seventy natives, he found himself once more in 
dangerous times. The men of Haamau, it was 
reported, had sworn to plunder and erase the 
settlement; letters came continually from the 
Hawaiian missionary, who acted as intelligence 
department; and for six weeks Mr. Stewart and 
three other whites slept in the cotton-house at 
night in a rampart of bales, and (what was their 
best defence) ostentatiously practised rifle-shooting 
by day upon the beach. Natives were often there 
to watch them; the practice was excellent; and 
the assault was never delivered —if it ever was 
intended, which I doubt, for the natives are more 
famous for false rumours than for deeds of en- 
ergy. I was told the late French war was a case 
in point; the tribes on the beach accusing those 
in the mountains of designs which they had never 
the hardihood to entertain. And the same testi- 
mony to their backwardness in open battle reached 
me from all sides. Captain Hart once landed after 
an engagement in a certain bay; one man had his 
hand hurt, an old woman and two children had 
been slain; and the captain improved the occa- 
sion by poulticing the hand, and taunting both 
sides upon so wretched an affair. It is true these 
wars were often merely formal — comparable with 
duels to the first blood. Captain Hart visited a 
bay where such a war was being carried on between 
two brothers, one of whom had been thought want- 
ing in civility to the guests of the other. About 


THE MARQUESAS 129 


one-half of the population served day about upon 
alternate sides, so as to be well with each when 
the inevitable peace should follow. The forts of 
the belligerents were over against each other, and 
close by. Pigs were cooking. Well-oiled braves, 
with well-oiled muskets, strutted on the paepae or 
sat down to feast. No business, however needful, 
could be done, and all thoughts were supposed to 
be centred in this mockery of war. A few days 
later, by a regrettable accident, a man was killed; 
it was felt at once the thing had gone too far, and 
the quarrel was instantly patched up. But the 
more serious wars were prosecuted in a similar 
spirit; a gift of pigs and a feast made their in- 
evitable end; the killing of a single man was a 
great victory, and the murder of defenceless soli- 
taries counted a heroic deed. 

The foot of the cliffs, about all these islands, 
is the place of fishing. Between Taahauku and 
Atuona we saw men, but chiefly women, some 
nearly naked, some in thin white or crimson 
dresses, perched in little surf-beat promontories — 
the brown precipice overhanging them, and the 
convolvulus overhanging that, as if to cut them 
off the more completely from assistance. There 
they would angle much of the morning; and as 
fast as they caught any fish, eat them, raw and 
living, where they stood. It was such helpless ones 
that the warriors from the opposite island of 
Tauata slew, and carried home and ate, and were 
thereupon accounted mighty men of valour. Of 
one such exploit I can give the account of an eye- 

9 


iol NOB HCE oStOsUal” io aes 


bP) 


witness. “ Portuguese Joe,’ Mr. Keane’s cook, 
was once pulling an oar in an Atuona boat, when 
they spied a stranger in a canoe with some fish 
and a piece of tapu. The Atuona men cried upon 
him to draw near and havea smoke. He complied, 
because, I suppose, he had no choice; but he knew, 
poor devil, what he was coming to, and (as Joe 
said) “he didn’t seém to care about the smoke.” 
A few questions followed, as to where he came 
from, and what was his business. These he must 
needs answer, as he must needs draw at the un- 
welcome pipe, his heart the while drying in his 
bosom. And then, of a sudden, a big fellow in 
Joe’s boat leaned over, plucked the stranger from 
his canoe, struck him with a knife in the neck — 
inward and downward, as Joe showed in panto- 
mime more expressive than his words — and held 
him under water, like a fowl, until his struggles 
ceased. Whereupon the long-pig was hauled on 
board, the boat’s head turned about for Atuona, 
and these Marquesan braves pulled home rejoicing. 
Moipu was on the beach and rejoiced with them on 
their arrival. Poor Joe toiled at his oar that day 
with a white face, yet he had no fear for himself. 
“They were very good to me — gave me plenty 
grub: never wished to eat white man,” said he. 

If the most horrible experience was Mr. Stew- 
art’s, it was Captain Hart himself who ran the 
nearest danger. He had bought a piece of land 
from Timau, chief of a neighbouring bay, and put 
some Chinese there to work. Visiting the station 
with one of the Godeffroys, he found his Chinamen 


THE MARQUESAS 131 


trooping to the beach in terror; Timau had driven 
them out, seized their effects, and was in war attire 
with his young men. A boat was despatched to 
Taahauku for reinforcement; as they awaited her 
return, they could see, from the deck of the 
schooner, Timau and his young men dancing the 
war-dance on a hilltop till past twelve at night; 
and so soon as the boat came (bringing three gen- 
darmes, armed with chassepots, two white men 
from Taahauku station, and some native warriors) 
the party set out to seize the chief before he should 
awake. Day was not come, and it was a very bright 
moonlight morning, when they reached the hill- 
top where (in a house of palm-leaves) Timau was 
sleeping off his debauch. The assailants were 
fully exposed, the interior of the hut quite dark; 
the position far from sound. The gendarmes knelt 
with their pieces ready, and Captain Hart advanced 
alone. As he drew near the door he heard the snap 
of a gun cocking from within, and in sheer self- 
defence — there being no other escape — sprang 
into the house and grappled Timau. “ Timau, 
come with me!”’ he cried. But Timau —a great 
fellow, his eyes blood-red with the abuse of kava, 
six foot three in stature —cast him on one side; 
and the captain, instantly expecting to be either 
shot or brained, discharged his pistol in the dark. 
When they carried Timau out at the door into the 
moonlight, he was already dead, and, upon this 
unlooked-for termination of their sally, the whites 
appeared to have lost all conduct, and retreated to 
the boats, fired upon by the natives as they went. 


m2. IN VDHE SOUT EH Sikes 


Captain Hart, who almost rivals Bishop Dordillon 
in popularity, shared with him the policy of extreme 
indulgence to the natives, regarding them as chil- 
dren, making light of their defects, and constantly 
in favour of mild measures. The death of Timau 
has thus somewhat weighed upon his mind; the 
more so, as the chieftain’s musket was found in 
the house unloaded. To a less delicate conscience 
the matter will seem light. If a drunken savage 
elects to cock a fire-arm, a gentleman advancing 
towards him in the open cannot wait to make sure 
if it be charged. 

I have touched on the captain’s popularity. It 
is one of the things that most strikes a stranger in 
the Marquesas. He comes instantly on two names, 
both new to him, both locally famous, both men- 
tioned by all with affection and respect, — the 
bishop’s and the captain’s. It gave me a strong 
desire to meet with the survivor, which was sub- 
sequently gratified —to the enrichment of these 
pages. Long after that again, in the Place Dolor- 
ous — Molokai ——I came once more on the traces 
of that affectionate popularity. There was a blind 
white leper there, an old sailor — “an old tough,” 
he called himself — who had long sailed among the 
Eastern islands. Him I used to visit, and, being 
fresh from the scenes of his activity, gave him 
the news. This (in the true island style) was 
largely a chronicle of wrecks; and it chanced I 
mentioned the case of one not very successful cap- 
tain, and how he had lost a vessel for Mr. Hart; 
thereupon the blind leper broke forth in lamenta- 


THE MARQUESAS 133 


tion. “ Did he lose a ship of John Hart’s?” he 
cried; “poor John Hart! Well, I’m sorry it was 
Hart’s,” with needless force of epithet, which I 
neglect to reproduce. 

Perhaps, if Captain Hart’s affairs had continued 
to prosper, his popularity might have been differ- 
ent. Success wins glory, but it kills affection, 
which misfortune fosters. And the misfortune 
which overtook the captain’s enterprise was truly 
singular. He was at the top of his career. Ile 
Masse belonged to him, given by the French as 
an indemnity for the robberies at Taahauku. But 
the Ile Masse was only suitable for cattle; and 
his two chief stations were Anaho, in Nuka-hiva, 
facing the north-east, and Taahauku in Hiva-oa, 
some hundred miles to the southward, and facing 
the south-west. Both these were on the same day 
swept by a tidal wave, which was not felt in any 
other bay or island of the group. The south coast 
of Hiva-oa was bestrewn with building timber and 
camphor-wood chests, containing goods; which, on 
the promise of a reasonable salvage, the natives 
very honestly brought back, the chests apparently 
not opened, and some of the wood after it had been 
built into their houses. But the recovery of such 
jetsam could not affect the result. It was impos- 
sible the captain should withstand this partiality 
of fortune; and with his fall the prosperity of the 
Marquesas ended. Anaho is truly extinct, Taa- 
hauku but a shadow of itself; nor has any new 
plantation arisen in their stead. 


CHAPTER XIII 


CHARACTERS 


r : “AHERE was a certain traffic in our anchor- 
age at Atuona; different indeed from the 
dead inertia and quiescence of the sister 

island, Nuka-hiva. Sails were seen steering from 

its mouth; now it would be a whale-boat manned 
with native rowdies, and heavy with copra for 
sale; now perhaps a single canoe come after 
commodities to buy. The anchorage was besides 
frequented by fishers; not only the lone females 
perched in niches of the cliff, but whole parties, who 
would sometimes camp and build a fire upon the 
beach, and sometimes lie in their canoes in the midst 
of the haven and jump by turns in the water; which 
they would cast eight or nine feet high, to drive, as 
we supposed, the fish into their nets. The goods the 
purchasers came to buy were sometimes quaint. I 
remarked one outrigger returning with a single ham 
swung froma pole in the stern. And one day there 
came into Mr. Keane’s store a charming lad, excel- 
lently mannered, speaking French correctly though 
with a babyish accent; very handsome too, and 
much of a dandy, as was shown not only in his shin- 
ing raiment, but by the nature of his purchases. 


4 


THE MARQUESAS 135 


These were five ship-biscuits, a bottle of scent, and 
two balls of washing blue. He was from Tauata, 
whither he returned the same night in an outrigger, 
daring the deep with these young-ladyish treasures. 
The gross of the native passengers were more ill- 
favoured: tall, powerful fellows, well tattooed, and 
with disquieting manners. Something coarse and 
jeering distinguished them, and I was often re- 
minded of the slums of some great city. One night, 
as dusk was falling, a whale-boat put in on that 
part of the beach where I chanced to be alone. 
Six or seven ruffanly fellows scrambled out; all 
had enough English to give me “ good-bye,” which 
was the ordinary salutation; or “ good-morning,”’ 
which they seemed to regard as an intensitive; 
jests followed, they surrounded me with harsh 
laughter and rude looks, and I was glad to move 
away. I had not yet encountered Mr. Stewart, or 
I should have been reminded of his first landing 
at Atuona and the humourist who nibbled at the 
heel. But their neighbourhood depressed me; 
and I felt, if I had been there a castaway and 
out of reach of help, my heart would have been 
sick. 

Nor was:the traffic altogether native. While we 
lay in the anchorage there befell a strange coin- 
cidence. A schooner was observed at sea and aim- 
ing to enter. We knew all the schooners in the 
group, but this appeared larger than any; she was 
rigged, besides, after the English manner; and, 
coming to an anchor some way outside the Casco, 
showed at last the blue ensign. There were at that 


1336 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


time, according to rumour, no fewer than four 
yachts in the Pacific; but it was strange that 
any two of them should thus lie side by side in 
that outlandish inlet: stranger still that in the 
owner of the Nyanza, Captain Dewar, I should 
find a man of the same country and the same 
county with myself, and one whom I had seen 
walking as a boy on the shores of the Alpes 
Maritimes. 

We had, besides, a white visitor from shore, 
who came and departed in a crowded whale-boat 
manned by natives; having read of yachts in the 
Sunday papers, and being fired with the desire to 
see one. Captain Chase, they called him, an old 
whaler-man, thickset and white-bearded, with a 
strong Indiana drawl; years old in the country, a 
good backer in battle, and one of those dead shots 
whose practice at the target struck terror in the 
braves of Haamau. Captain Chase dwelt farther 
east in a bay called Hanamate, with a Mr. M‘Cal- 
lum; or rather they had dwelt together once, and 
were now amicably separated. The captain is to 
be found near one end of the bay, in a wreck of a 
house, and waited on by a Chinese. At the point 
of the opposing corner another habitation stands 
on a tall paepae. The surf runs there exceeding 
heavy, seas of seven and eight feet high bursting 
under the walls of the house, which is thus continu- 
ally filled with their clamour, and rendered fit only 
for solitary, or at least for silent, inmates. Here 
it is that Mr. M‘Callum, with a Shakespeare and 
a Burns, enjoys the society of the breakers. His 


THE MARQUESAS | 137 


name and his Burns testify to Scottish blood; but 
he is an American born, somewhere far east; fol- 
lowed the trade of a ship-carpenter; and was long 
employed, the captain of a hundred Indians, break- 
ing up wrecks about Cape Flattery. Many of the 
whites who are to be found scattered in the South 
Seas represent the more artistic portion of their 
class; and not only enjoy the poetry of that new 
life, but came there on purpose to enjoy it. I have 
been shipmates with a man, no longer young, who 
sailed upon that voyage, his first time to sea, for the 
mere love of Samoa; and it was a few letters in a 
newspaper that sent him on that pilgrimage. Mr. 
M‘Callum was another instance of the same. He 
had read of the South Seas; loved to read of 
them; and let their image fasten in his heart: 
till at length he could refrain no longer — must 
set forth, a new Rudel, for that unseen home- 
land — and has now dwelt for years in Hiva-oa, 
and will lay his bones there in the end with 
full content; having no desire to behold again the 
places of his boyhood, only, perhaps — once be- 
fore he dies—the rude and wintry landscape of 
Cape Flattery. Yet he is an active man, full 
of schemes; has bought land of the natives; has 
planted five thousand cocoa-palms; has a desert 

island in his eye, which he desires to lease, and a 
- schooner in the stocks, which he has laid and built 
himself, and even hopes to finish. Mr. M‘Callum 
and I did not meet, but, like gallant troubadours, 
corresponded in verse. I hope he will not consider 
it a breach of copyright if I give here a specimen of 


380) DN, (UB ES Oo ily Ps teen 


his muse. He and Bishop Dordillon are the two 
European bards of the Marquesas. 


Sail, ho! Ahoy! Casco, 
First among the pleasure fleet 
That came around to greet 
These isles from San Francisco. 


And first, too; only one 

Among the literary men 

That this way has ever been — 
Welcome, then, to Stevenson. 


Please not offended be 

At this little notice 

Of the Casco, Captain Otis, 
With the novelist’s family. 


A voir une voyage magnifica, 
Is our wish sincere, 
That you ’ll have from here 
Allant sur la Grande Pacijical. 


But our chief visitor was one Mapiao, a great 
Tahuku — which seems to mean priest, wizard, 
tattooer, practiser of any art, or, in a word, esoteric 
person — and a man famed for his eloquence on 
public occasions and witty talk in private. His first 
appearance was typical of the man. He came down 
clamorous to the eastern landing, where the surf 
was running very high; scorned all our signals to 
go round the bay; carried his point, was brought 
aboard at some hazard to our skiff, and set down 
in one corner of the cockpit to his appointed task. 
He had been hired, as one cunning in the art, to 
make my old men’s beards into a wreath: what a 


THE MARQUESAS | 139 


wreath for Celia’s arbour! His own beard (which 
he carried, for greater safety, in a sailor’s knot) 
was not merely the adornment of his age, but a 
substantial piece of property. One hundred dollars 
was the estimated value; and as Brother Michel 
never knew a native to deposit a greater sum with 
Bishop Dordillon, our friend was a rich man in 
virtue of his chin. He had something of an East 
Indian cast, but taller and stronger: his nose 
hooked, his face narrow, his forehead very high, 
the whole elaborately tattooed. I may say I have 
never entertained a guest so trying. In the least 
particular he must be waited on; he would not go 
to the scuttle-butt for water; he would not even 
reach to get the glass, it must be given him in his 
hand; if aid were denied him, he would fold his 
arms, bow his head, and go without: only the work 
would suffer. Early the first forenoon he called 
aloud for biscuit and salmon; biscuit and ham 
were brought; he looked on them inscrutably, and 
signed they should be set aside. A number of con- 
siderations crowded on my mind; how the sort of 
work on which he was engaged was probably tapu 
in a high degree; should by rights, perhaps, be 
transacted on a tapu platform which no female 
might approach; and it was possible that fish might 
be the essential diet. Some salted fish I therefore 
brought him, and along with that a glass of rum: 
at sight of which Mapiao displayed extraordinary 
animation, pointed to the zenith, made a long 
speech in which I picked up wmati — the word for 
the sun —and signed to me once more to place 


140 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


these dainties out of reach. At last I had under- 
stood, and every day the programme was the same. 
At an early period of the morning his dinner must 
be set forth on the roof of the house and at a 
proper distance, full in view but just out of reach; 
and not until the fit hour, which was the point of 
noon, would the artificer partake. This solemnity 
was the cause of an absurd misadventure. He was 
seated plaiting, as usual, at the beards, his dinner 
arrayed on the roof, and not far off a glass of 
water standing. It appears he desired to drink; 
was of course far too great a gentleman to rise and 
get the water for himself; and spying Mrs. Steven- 
son, imperiously signed to her to hand it. The 
signal was misunderstood; Mrs. Stevenson was, 
by this time, prepared for any eccentricity on the 
part of our guest; and instead of passing him 
the water, flung his dinner overboard. I must do 
Mapiao justice: all laughed, but his laughter rang 
the loudest. 

These troubles of service were at worst occa- 
sional; the embarrassment of the man’s talk inces- 
sant. He was plainly a practised conversationalist ; 
the nicety of his inflections, the elegance of his 
gestures, and the fine play of his expression, told 
us that. We, meanwhile, sat like aliens in a play- 
house; we could see the actors were upon 
some material business and performing well, but 
the plot of the drama remained undiscoverable. 
Names of places, the name of Captain Hart, occa- 
sional disconnected words, tantalised without en- 
lightening us; and the less we understood, the more 


THE MARQUESAS 141 


gallantly, the more copiously, and with still the 
more explanatory gestures, Mapiao returned to the 
assault. We could see his vanity was on the rack; 
being come to a place where that fine jewel of his 
conversational talent could earn him no respect; 
and he had times of despair when he desisted from 
the endeavour, and instants of irritation when he 
regarded us with unconcealed contempt. Yet for 
me, as the practitioner of some kindred mystery 
to his own, he manifested to the last a measure of 
respect. As we sat under the awning, in opposite 
corners of the cockpit, he braiding hairs from dead 
men’s chins, I forming runes upon a sheet of folio 
paper, he would nod across to me as one Tahuku 
to another, or, crossing the cockpit, study for 
awhile my shapeless scrawl and encourage me with 
a heartfelt “ mitai!— good!” So might a deaf 
painter sympathise far off with a musician, as the 
slave and master of some uncomprehended and yet 
kindred art. A silly trade he doubtless considered 
it; but a man must make allowance for barbari- 
ans — chaque pays a ses coutumes —and he felt 
the principle was there. 

The time came at last when his labours, which 
resembled those rather of Penelope than Hercules, 
could be no more spun out, and nothing remained 
but to pay him and say farewell. After a long, 
learned argument in Marquesan, I gathered that 
his mind was set on fishhooks; with three of which, 
and a brace of dollars, I thought he was not ill 
rewarded for passing his forenoons in our cock- 
pit, eating, drinking, delivering his opinions, and 


m2 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


pressing the ship’s company into his menial service. 
For all that, he was a man of so high a bearing, 
and so like an uncle of my own who should have 
gone mad and got tattooed, that I applied to him, 
when we were both on shore, to know if he were 
satisfied. “ Mitat ehipe?’ I asked. And he, with 
rich unction, offering at the same time his hand — 
“ Mitat ehipe, mitai kaekae; kaoha nui!’’ — or, to 
translate freely: “ The ship is good, the victuals 
are up to the mark, and we part in friendship.” 
Which testimonial uttered, he set off along the 
beach with his head bowed and the air of one 
deeply injured. 

I saw him go, on my side, with relief. It would 
be more interesting to learn how our relation 
seemed to Mapiao. His exigence, we may suppose, 
was merely loyal. He had been hired by the igno- 
rant to do a piece of work; and he was bound that 
he would do it the right way. Countless obstacles, 
continual ignorant ridicule, availed not to dissuade 
him. He had his dinner laid out; watched it, as 
was fit, the while he worked; ate it at the fit hour; 
was in all things served and waited on; and could 
take his hire in the end with a clear conscience, 
telling himself the mystery was performed duly, 
the beards rightfully braided, and we (in spite 
of ourselves) correctly served. His view of our 
stupidity, even he, the mighty talker, must have 
lacked language to express. He never interfered 
with my Tahuku work; civilly praised it, idle as 


it seemed; civilly supposed that I was competent — 
in my own mystery: such being the attitude of the _ 


THE MARQUESAS 143 


intelligent and the polite. And we, on the other 
hand — who had yet the most to gain or lose, since 
the product was to be ours — who had professed 
our disability by the very act of hiring him to do 
it — were never weary of impeding his own more 
important labours, and sometimes lacked the sense 
and the civility to refrain from laughing. 


CHAPTER XIV 


IN A CANNIBAL VALLEY 


a “HE road from Taahauku to Atuona skirted 
the north-westerly side of the anchorage, 
somewhat high up, edged, and sometimes 

shaded, by the splendid flowers of the flamboyant 
— its English name I do not know. At the turn 
of the land, Atuona came in view: a long beach, a 
heavy and loud breach of surf, a shoreside village 
scattered among trees, and the guttered mountains 
drawing near on both sides above a narrow. and 
rich ravine. Its infamous repute perhaps affected 
me; but I thought it the loveliest, and by far the 
most ominous and gloomy, spot on earth. Beauti- 
ful it surely was; and even more salubrious. The 
healthfulness of the whole group is amazing; that 
of Atuona almost in the nature of a miracle. In 
Atuona, a village planted in a shoreside marsh, the 
houses standing everywhere intermingled with the 
pools of a taro-garden, we find every condition of 
tropical danger and discomfort; and yet there are 
not even mosquitos — not even the hateful day-fly 
of Nuka-hiva — and fever, and its concomitant, the 
island fe’efe’e,! are unknown. 


1 Elephantiasis. 


THE MARQUESAS 145 


This is the chief station of the French on the > 
man-eating isle of Hiva-oa. The sergeant of gen- 
darmerie enjoys the style of the vice-resident, and 
hoists the French colours over a quite extensive 
compound. A Chinaman, a waif from the planta- 
tion, keeps a restaurant in the rear quarters of the 
village; and the mission is well represented by the 
sisters’ school and Brother Michel’s church. Father 
Orens, a wonderful octogenarian, his frame scarce 
bowed, the fire of his eye undimmed, has lived, and 
trembled, and suffered in this place since 1843. 
Again and again, when Moipu had made cocoa- 
brandy, he has been driven from his house into the 
woods. “A mouse that dwelt in a cat’s ear” had 
a more easy resting-place; and yet I have never 
seen a man that bore less mark of years. He must 
show us the church, still decorated with the bish- 
op’s artless ornaments of paper — the last work of 
industrious old hands, and the last earthly amuse- 
ment of a man that was much of a hero. In the 
sacristy we must see his sacred vessels, and, in par- 
ticular, a vestment which was a “ vraie curiosité,” 
because it had been given by a gendarme. To 
the Protestant there is always something embar- 
rassing in the eagerness with which grown and 
holy men regard these trifles; but it was touching 
and pretty to see Orens, his aged eyes shining in 
his head, display his sacred treasures. 

August 26.— The vale behind the village, nar- 
rowing swiftly to a mere ravine, was choked with 
profitable trees. A river gushed in the midst. 
Overhead, the tall cocoa-palms made a primary 

10 


m6 0N (TSH ES OU hin Sie 


covering; above that, from one wall of the moun-. 
tain to another, the ravine was roofed with cloud; 
so that we moved below, amid teeming vegetation, 
in a covered house of heat. On either hand, at 
every hundred yards, instead of the houseless, 
disembowelling paepaes of Nuka-hiva, populous 
houses turned out their inhabitants to cry “ Ka- 
oha!”’ to the passers-by. The road, too, was busy; 
strings of girls, fair and foul, as in less favoured 
countries; men bearing breadfruit; the sisters, 
with a little guard of pupils; a fellow bestriding 
a horse — passed and greeted us continually; and 
now it was a Chinaman who came to the gate of 
his flower-yard, and gave us ‘“‘ Good-day ” in ex- 
cellent English; and a little farther on it would be 
some natives who set us down by the wayside, 
made us a feast of mummy-apple, and entertained 
us as we ate with drumming on a tin case. With 
all this fine plenty of men and fruit, death is at 
work here also. The population, according to the 
highest estimate, does not exceed six hundred in 
the whole vale of Atuona; and yet, when I once 
chanced to put the question, Brother Michel 
counted up ten whom he knew to be sick beyond 
recovery. It was here, too, that I could at last 
gratify my curiosity with the sight of a native 
house in the very article of dissolution. It had 
fallen flat along the paepae, its poles sprawling un- 
gainly; the rains and the mites contended against 
it; what remained seemed sound enough, but much 
was gone already; and it was easy to see how the 
insects consumed the walls as if they had been 


THE MARQUESAS 147 


-bread, and the air and the rain ate into them like 
vitriol. 

A little ahead of us, a young gentleman, very 
well tattooed, and dressed in a pair of white 
trousers and a flannel shirt, had been marching 
unconcernedly. Of a sudden, without apparent 
cause, he turned back, took us in possession, and 
led us undissuadably along a by-path to the river’s 
edge. There, in a nook of the most attractive 
amenity, he bade us to sit down: the stream 
splashing at our elbow, a shock of nondescript 
greenery enshrining us from above; and thither, 
after a brief absence, he brought us a cocoa-nut, a 
lump of sandal-wood, and a stick he had begun to 
carve: the nut for present refreshment, the sandal- 
wood for a precious gift, and the stick —in the 
simplicity of his vanity—to harvest premature 
praise. Only one section was yet carved, although 
the whole was pencil-marked in lengths; and when 
I proposed to buy it, Poni (for that was the artist’s 
name) recoiled in horror. But I was not to be 
-moved, and simply refused restitution, for I had 
long wondered why a people who displayed, in their 
tattooing, so great a gift of arabesque invention, 
should display it nowhere else. Here, at last, I 
had found something of the same talent in another 
medium; and I held the incompleteness, in these 
days of world-wide brummagem, for a happy mark 
of authenticity. Neither my reasons nor my pur- 
pose had I the means of making clear to Poni; I 
could only hold on to the stick, and bid the artist 
follow me to the gendarmerie, where I should 


48 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


find interpreters and money; but we gave him, in 
the meanwhile, a boat-call in return for his sandal- 
wood. As he came behind us down the vale he 
sounded upon this continually. And continually, 
from the wayside houses, there poured forth little 
groups of girls in crimson, or of men in white. 
And to these must Poni pass the news of who the 
strangers were, of what they had been doing, of 
why it was that Poni had a boat-whistle; and of 
why he was now being haled to the Vice-Residency, 
uncertain whether to be punished or rewarded, 
uncertain whether he had lost a stick or made a 
bargain, but hopeful on the whole, and in the 
meanwhile highly consoled by the boat-whistle. 
Whereupon he would tear himself away from this 
particular group of inquirers, and once more we 
would hear the shrill call in our wake. 

August 27.—-I made a more extended circuit 
in the vale with Brother Michel. We were 
mounted on a pair of sober nags, suitable to these 
rude paths; the weather was exquisite, and the 
company in which I found myself no less agreeable 
than the scenes through which I passed. We 
mounted at first by a steep grade along the summit 
of one of those twisted spurs that, from a distance, 
mark out provinces of sun and shade upon the 
mountain-side. The ground fell away on either 
hand with an extreme declivity. From either hand, 
out of profound ravines, mounted the song of fall- 
ing water and the smoke of household fires. Here 
and there the hills of foliage would divide, and 
our eye would plunge down upon one of these deep- 


THE MARQUESAS 149 


nested habitations. And still, high in front, arose 
the precipitous barrier of the mountain, greened 
over where it seemed that scarce a harebell could 
find root, barred with the zigzags of a human road 
where it seemed that not a goat could scramble. 
And in truth, for all the labour that it cost, the road 
is regarded even by the Marquesans as impassable; 
they will not risk a horse on that ascent; and 
those who lie to the westward come and go in their 
canoes. I never knew a hill to lose so little on a 
near approach: a consequence, I must suppose, of 
its surprising steepness. When we turned about, 
I was amazed to behold so deep a view behind, and 
so high a shoulder of blue sea, crowned by the 
whale-like island of Motane. And yet the wall of 
mountain had not visibly dwindled, and I could 
even have fancied, as I raised my eyes to measure 
it, that it loomed higher than before. 

We struck now into covert paths, crossed and 
heard more near at hand the bickering of the 
streams, and tasted the coolness of those recesses 
where the houses stood. The birds sang abortt us 
as we descended. All along our path my guide 
was being hailed by voices: “ Mikaél — Kaoha, 
Mikaél!”’ From the doorstep, from the cotton- 
patch, or out of the deep grove of island-chestnuts, 
these friendly cries arose, and were cheerily an- 
swered as we passed. In a sharp angle of a glen, 
on a rushing brook and under fathoms of cool 
foliage, we struck a house upon a well-built pae- 
pae, the fire brightly burning under the popoi- 
shed against the evening meal; and here the cries 


re N THE SOUTH Sims 


became a chorus, and the house folk, running out, 
obliged us to dismount and breathe. It seemed a 
numerous family: we Saw eight at least; and one 
of these honoured me with a particular attention. 
This was the mother, a woman naked to the waist, 
of an aged countenance, but with hair still copious 
and black, and breasts still erect and youthful. On 
our arrival I could see she remarked me, but in- 
stead of offering any greeting, disappeared at once 
into the bush. Thence she returned with two crim- 


son flowers. ‘“‘ Good-bye!” was her salutation, 
uttered not without coquetry ; and as she said it she 
pressed the flowers into my hand — “ Good-bye! I 


speak Inglis.” It was from a whaler-man, who 
(she informed me) was “a plenty good chap,” that 
she had learned my language; and I could not but 
think how handsome she must have been in these 
times of her youth, and could not but guegs that 
some memories of the dandy whaler-man prompted 
her attentions to myself. Nor could I refrain from 
wondering what had befallen her lover; in the rain 
and mire of what sea-ports he had tramped since 
then; in what close and garish drinking-dens had 
found his pleasure; and in the ward of what infir- 
mary dreamed his last of the Marquesas. But she, 
the more fortunate, lived on in her green island. 
The talk, in this lost house upon the mountains, 
ran chiefly upon Mapiao and his visits to the Casco. 
the news of which had probably gone abroad by 
then to all the island, so that there was no paepae 
in Hiva-oa where they did not make the subject of 
excited comment. % 


THE MARQUESAS 451 


Not much beyond we came upon a high place in 
the foot of the ravine. Two roads divided it, and 
met in the midst. Save for this intersection the 
amphitheatre was strangely perfect, and had a cer- 
tain ruder air of things Roman. Depths of foliage 
and the bulk of the mountain kept it in a grateful 
shadow. On the benches several young folk sat 
clustered or apart. One of these, a girl perhaps 
fourteen years of age, buxom and comely, caught 
the eye of Brother Michel. Why was she not at 
school? — she was done with school now. What 
was she doing here? — she lived here now. Why 
so?—no answer but a deepening blush. There 
_ was no severity in Brother Michel’s manner; the 
girl’s own confusion told her story. “Elle a 
honte,’ was the missionary’s comment, as we rode 
away. Near by in the stream, a grown girl was 
bathing naked in a goyle between two stepping- 
stones; and it amused me to see with what alacrity 
and real alarm she bounded on her many-coloured 
under-clothes. Even in these daughters of can- 
nibals shame was eloquent. 

It is in Hiva-oa, owing to the inveterate canni- 
balism of the natives, that local beliefs have been 
most rudely trodden underfoot. It was here that 
three religious chiefs were set under a bridge, and 
the women of the valley made to defile over their 
heads upon the roadway: the poor, dishonoured 
fellows sitting there (all observers agree) with 
streaming tears. Not only was one road driven 
across the high place, but two roads intersected in 
its midst. There is no reason to suppose that the 


rac NYA ESO UN Hears 


last was done of purpose, and perhaps it was im- 
possible entirely to avoid the numerous sacred 
places of the islands. But these things are not 
done without result. I have spoken already of the 
regard of Marquesans for the dead, making (as it 
does) so strange a contrast with their unconcern 
for death. Early on this day’s ride, for instance, 
we encountered a petty chief, who inquired (of 
course) where we were going, and suggested by 
way of amendment: “Why do you not rather 
show him the cemetery?”’ I saw it; it was but 
newly opened, the third within eight years. They 
are great builders here in Hiva-oa; I saw in my 
ride paepaes that no European dry-stone mason 
could have equalled, the black volcanic stones were 
laid so justly, the corners were so precise, the 
levels so true; but the retaining-wall of the new 
graveyard stood apart, and seemed to be a work of 
love. The sentiment of honour for the dead is 
therefore not extinct. And yet observe the con- 
sequence of violently countering men’s opinions. 
Of the four prisoners in Atuona gaol, three were of 
course thieves; the fourth was there for sacrilege. 
He had levelled up a piece of the graveyard — to 
give a feast upon, as he informed the court — and 
declared he had no thought of doing wrong. Why 
should he? He had been forced at the point of the 
bayonet to destroy the sacred places of his own 
piety; when he had recoiled from the task, he had 
been jeered at for a superstitious fool. And now 
it is supposed he will respect our European super- 
stitions as by second nature. 


CHAPTER XV 


THE TWO CHIEFS OF ATUONA 


Bordelais Straits for Taahauku) she ap- 

proached on one board very near the land 
in the opposite isle of Tauata, where houses were 
to be seen in a grove of tall cocoa-palms. Brother 
Michel pointed out the spot. ‘I am at home now,” 
said he. “I believe I have a large share in these 
cocoa-nuts; and in that house madame my mother 
lives with her two husbands!” “ With two hus- 
bands?’ somebody inquired. “ C’est ma honte,”’ 
replied the brother drily. 

A word in passing on the two husbands. I con- 
ceive the brother to have expressed himself loosely. 
It seems common enough to find a native lady with 
two consorts; but these are not two husbands. The 
first is still the husband; the wife continues to be 
referred to by his name; and the position of the 
coadjutor, or pikio, although quite regular, appears 
undoubtedly subordinate. We had opportunities 
to observe one household of the sort. The pikio 
was recognised; appeared openly along with the 
husband when the lady was thought to be insulted, 
and the pair made common cause like brothers. 


L- had chanced (as the Casco beat through the 


14 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


At home the inequality was more apparent. The 
husband sat to receive and entertain visitors; the 
pikio was running the while to fetch cocoa-nuts 
like a hired servant, and I remarked he was sent 
on these errands in preference even to the son. 
Plainly we have here no second husband; plainly 
we have the tolerated lover. Only, in the Mar- 
quesas, instead of carrying his lady’s fan and 
mantle, he must turn his hand to do the husband’s 
housework. 

The sight of Brother Michel’s family estate led 
the conversation for some while upon the method 
and consequence of artificial kinship. Our curiosity 
became extremely whetted; the brother offered 
to have the whole of us adopted, and some two 
days later we became accordingly the children of 
Paaaeua, appointed chief of Atuona. I was unable 
to be present at the ceremony, which was primi- 
tively simple. The two Mrs. Stevensons and Mr. 
Osbourne, along with Paaaeua, his wife, and an 
adopted child of theirs, son of a shipwrecked 
Austrian, sat down to an excellent island meal, of 
which the principal and the only necessary dish was 
pig. A concourse watched them through the aper- 
tures of the house; but none, not even Brother 
Michel, might partake; for the meal was sacra- 
mental, and either creative or declaratory of the 
new relationship. In Tahiti things are not so 
strictly ordered; when Ori and I “ made brothers,” 
both our families sat with us at table, yet only he 
and I, who had eaten with intention, were sup- 
posed to be affected by the ceremony. For the 


THE MARQUESAS gs 


adoption of an infant I believe no formality to be 
required; the child is handed over by the natural 
parents, and grows up to inherit the estates of the 
adoptive. Presents are doubtless exchanged, as at 
all junctures of island life, social or international ; 
but I never heard of any banquet —the child’s 
presence at the daily board perhaps sufficing. We 
may find the rationale in the ancient Arabian idea 
that a common diet makes a common blood, with its 
derivative axiom that “he is the father who gives 
the child its morning draught.”’ In the Marquesan 
practice, the sense would thus be evanescent; from 
the Tahitian, a mere survival, it will have entirely 
fled. An interesting parallel will probably occur to 
many of my readers. 

What is the nature of the obligation assumed 
at such a festival? It will vary with the characters 
of those engaged, and with the circumstances of 
the case. Thus it would be absurd to take too seri- 
ously our adoption at Atuona. On the part of 
_ Paaaeua it was an affair of social ambition; when 
he agreed to receive us in his family the man had 
not so much as seen us, and knew only that we 
were inestimably rich and travelled in a floating 
palace. We, upon our side, ate of his baked meats 
with no true animus affiliandi, but moved by the 
single sentiment of curiosity. The affair was for- 
mal, and a matter of parade, as when in Europe 
sovereigns call each other cousin. Yet, had we 
stayed at Atuona, Paaaeua would have held him- 
self bound to establish us upon his land, and to 
set apart young men for our service, and trees for 


166 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


our support. I have mentioned the Austrian. He 
sailed in one of two sister ships, which left the 
Clyde in coal; both rounded the Horn, and both, 
at several hundred miles of distance, though close 
on the same point of time, took fire at sea on the 
Pacific. One was destroyed; the derelict iron 
frame of the second, after long, aimless cruising, 
was at length recovered, refitted, and hails to-day 
from San Francisco. A boat’s crew from one of 
these disasters reached, after great hardships, the 
isle of Hiva-oa. Some of these men vowed they 
would never again confront the chances of the sea; 
but alone of them all the Austrian has been exactly 
true to his engagement, remains where he landed, 
and designs to die where he has lived. Now, with 
such a man, falling and taking root among isl- 
anders, the processes described may be compared 
to a gardener’s graft. He passes bodily into the 
native stock; ceases wholly to be alien; has entered 
the commune of the blood, shares the prosperity 
and consideration of his new family, and is ex- 
pected to impart with the same generosity the 
fruits of his European skill and knowledge. It is 
this implied engagement that so frequently offends 
the ingrafted white. To snatch an immediate 
advantage — to get (let us say) a station for his 
store — he will play upon the native custom and 
become a son or a brother for the day, promising 
himself to cast down the ladder by which he shall 
have ascended, and repudiate the kinship so soon as 
it shall grow burthensome. And he finds there are 
two parties to the bargain. Perhaps his Polynesian 


THE MARQUESAS 15; 


relative is simple, and conceived the blood-bond 
literally; perhaps he is shrewd, and himself entered 
the covenant with a view to gain. And either way 
the store is ravaged, the house littered with lazy 
natives; and the richer the man grows, the more 
numerous, the more idle, and the more affectionate 
he finds his native relatives. Most men thus cir- 
cumstanced contrive to buy or brutally manage 
to enforce their independence; but many vegetate 
without hope, strangled by parasites. 

We had no cause to blush with Brother Michel. 
Our new parents were kind, gentle, well-mannered, 
and generous in gifts; the wife was a most motherly 
woman, the husband a man who stood justly high 
with his employers. Enough has been said to show 
why Moipu should be deposed; and in Paaaeua the 
French had found a reputable substitute. He went 
always scrupulously dressed, and looked the picture 
of propriety, like a dark, handsome, stupid, and 
probably religious young man hot from a European 
funeral. In character he seemed the ideal of what 
is known as the good citizen. He wore gravity 
like an ornament. None could more nicely repre- 
sent the desired character as an appointed chief, 
the outpost of civilisation and reform. And yet, 
were the French to go and native manners to re- 
vive, fancy beholds him crowned with old men’s 
beards and crowding with the first to a man-eating 
festival. But I must not seem to be unjust to 
Paaaeua. His respectability went deeper than the 
skin; his sense of the becoming sometimes nerved 
him for unexpected rigours. 


8 IN(THE SOUT H Shas 


One evening Captain Otis and Mr. Osbourne 
were on shore in the village. All was agog; danc- 
ing had begun; it was plain it was to be a night 
of festival, and our adventurers were overjoyed at 
their good fortune. A strong fall of rain drove 
them for shelter to the house of Paaaeua, where 
they were made welcome, wiled into a chamber, and 
shut in. Presently the rain took off, the fun was 
to begin in earnest, and the young bloods of 
Atuona came round the house and called to my 
fellow-travellers through the interstices of the wall. 
Late into the night the calls were continued and 
resumed, and sometimes mingled with taunts; late 
into the night the prisoners, tantalised by the noises 
of the festival, renewed their efforts to escape. But 
all was vain; right across the door lay that god- 
fearing householder, Paaaeua, feigning sleep; and 
my friends had to forego their junketing. In this 
incident, so delightfully European, we thought we 
could detect three strands of sentiment. In the 
first place, Paaaeua had a charge of souls: these 
were young men, and he judged it right to withhold 
them from the primrose path. Secondly, he was 
a public character, and it was not fitting that his 
guests should countenance a festival of which he 
disapproved. So might some strict clergyman at 
home address a worldly visitor: ‘‘ Go to the theatre 
if you like, but, by your leave, not from my house! ” 
Thirdly, Paaaeua was a man jealous and with 
some cause (as shall be shown) for jealousy; and 
the feasters were the satellites of his immediate 
rival, Moipu. 


THE MARQUESAS | 159 


For the adoption had caused much excitement in 
the village; it made the strangers popular. Paa- 
aeua, in his difficult posture of appointed chief, 
drew strength and dignity from their alliance, and 
only Moipu and his followers were malcontent. 
For some reason, nobody (except myself) appears 
to dislike Moipu. Captain Hart, who has been 
robbed and threatened by him; Father Orens, 
whom he has fired at, and repeatedly driven to 
the woods; my own family, and even the French 
officials — all seemed smitten with an irrepres- 
sible affection for the man. His fall had been 
made soft; his son, upon his death, was to suc- 
ceed Paaaeua in the chieftaincy; and he lived, at 
the time of our visit, in the shoreward part of the 
village in a good house, and with a strong follow- 
ing of young men, his late braves and pot-hunters. 
In this society, the coming of the Casco, the adop- 
tion, the return feast on board, and the presents 
exchanged between the whites and their new par- 
ents, were doubtless eagerly and bitterly canvassed. 
It was felt that a few years ago the honours would 
have gone elsewhere. In this unwonted business, 
in this reception of some hitherto undreamed-of 
and outlandish potentate— some Prester John or 
old Assaracus —a few years back it would have 
been the part of Moipu to play the hero and the 
host, and his young men would have accompanied 
and adorned the various celebrations as the ac- 
knowledged leaders of society: And now, by a 
malign vicissitude of fortune, Moipu must sit in his 
house quite unobserved; and his young men could 


t60 IN SRE SOUTH Seas 


but look in at the door the while their rivals feasted. 
Perhaps M. Grévy felt a touch of bitterness to- 
wards his successor when he beheld him figure on 
the broad stage of the centenary of eighty-nine; 
the visit of the Casco which Moipu had missed 
by so few years was a more unusual occasion in 
Atuona than a centenary in France; and the de- 
throned chief determined to reassert himself in the 
public eye. 

Mr. Osbourne had gone into Atuona photo- 
graphing; the population of the village had gath. 
ered together for the occasion on the place before 
the church, and Paaaeua, highly delighted with 
this new appearance of his family, played the 
master of ceremonies. The church had been taken, 
with its jolly architect before the door; the nuns 
with their pupils; sundry damsels in the ancient 
and singularly unbecoming robes of tapa; and 
Father Orens in the midst of a group of his parish- 
ioners. J know not what else was at hand, when 
the photographer became aware of a sensation in 
the crowd, and, looking around, beheld a very noble 
figure of a man appear upon the margin of a 
thicket and stroll nonchalantly near. The noncha- 
lance was visibly affected; it was plain he came 
there to arouse attention, and his success was in- 
stant. He was introduced; he was civil, he was 
obliging, he was always ineffably superior and cer- 
tain of himself; a well-graced actor. It was pres- 
ently suggested that he should appear in his war 
costume; he gracefully consented; and returned 
in that strange, inappropriate, and _ ill-omened 


THE MARQUESAS 161 


array (which very well became his handsome per- 
son) to strut in a circle of admirers, and be thence- 
forth the centre of photography. Thus had Moipu 
effected his introduction, as by accident, to the white 
strangers, made it a favour to display his finery, 
and reduced his rival to a secondary réle on the 
theatre of the disputed village. Paaaeua felt the 
blow; and, with a spirit which we never dreamed 
he could possess, asserted his priority. It was 
found impossible that day to get a photograph of 
Moipu alone; for whenever he stood up before the 
camera his successor placed himself unbidden by 
his side, and gently but firmly held to his position. 
The portraits of the pair, Jacob and Esau, standing 
shoulder to shoulder, one in his careful European 
dress, one in his barbaric trappings, figure the past 
and present of their island. A graveyard with its 
humble crosses would be the aptest symbol of the 
future. 

We are all impressed with the belief that Moipu 
had planned his campaign from the beginning to 
the end. It is certain that he lost no time in push- 
ing his advantage. Mr. Osbourne was inveigled to: 
his house; various gifts were fished out of an old 
sea-chest; Father Orens was called into service 
as interpreter, and Moipu formally proposed to 
“ make brothers ”’ with Mata-Galahi — Glass-Eyes, 
— the not very euphonious name under which Mr. 
Osbourne passed in the Marquesas. The feast 
of brotherhood took place on board the Casco. 
Paaaeua had arrived with his family, like a plain 
man; and his presents, which had been numerous, 

II 


42 IN. THE SOUTH tISEAS 


had followed one another, at intervals through 
several days. Moipu, as if to mark at every point 
the opposition, came with a certain feudal pomp, 
attended by retainers bearing gifts of all descrip- 
tions, from plumes of old men’s beards to little, 
pious, Catholic engravings. 

I had met the man before this in the village, 
and detested him on sight; there was something 
indescribably raffish in his looks and ways that 
raised my gorge; and when man-eating was re- 
ferred to, and he laughed a low, cruel laugh, part 
boastful, part bashful, like one reminded of some 
dashing peccadillo, my repugnance was mingled 
with nausea. This is no very human attitude, 
nor one at all becoming in a traveller. And, seen 
more privately, the man improved. Something 
negroid in character and face was still displeasing ; 
but his ugly mouth became attractive when he 
smiled, his figure and bearing were certainly noble, 
and his eyes superb. In his appreciation of jams 
and pickles, in his delight in the reverberating 
mirrors of the dining-cabin, and consequent end- 
less repetition of Moipus and Mata-Galahis, he 
showed himself engagingly a child. And yet I 
am not sure; and what seemed childishness may 
have been rather courtly art. His manners struck 
me as beyond the mark; they were refined and 
caressing to the point of grossness, and when I 
think of the serene absent-mindedness with which 
he first strolled in upon our party, and then recall 
him running on hands and knees along the cabin 
sofas, pawing the velvet, dipping into the beds, 


THE MARQUESAS |. 163 


and bleating commendatory “ mitais” with ex- 
aggerated emphasis, like some enormous over- 
mannered ape, I feel the more sure that both must 
have been calculated. And I sometimes wonder 
next, if Moipu were quite alone in this polite 
duplicity, and ask myself whether the Casco were 
quite so much admired in the Marquesas as our 
visitors desired us to suppose. 

I will complete the sketch of an incurable can- 
nibal grandee with two incongruous traits. His 
favourite morsel was the human hand, of which he 
speaks to-day with an ill-favoured lustfulness. And 
when he said good-bye to Mrs. Stevenson, holding 
her hand, viewing her with tearful eyes, and chant- 
ing his farewell improvisation in the falsetto of 
Marquesan high society, he wrote upon her mind 
a sentimental impression which I try in vain to 
share. 


hig 
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TA OTR Ne 


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A ELAUAL Wat 





PART Il: THE PAUMOTUS 


ry : 
“att 





PART II: THE PAUMOTUS 


CHAPTER I 


THE DANGEROUS ARCHIPELAGO — ATOLLS 
a y AT A DISTANCE 
N the early morning of 4th September a 
whale-boat manned by natives dragged us 
down the green lane of the anchorage and 
round the spouting promontory. On the shore 
level it was a hot, breathless, and yet crystal morn- 
ing; but high overhead the hills of Atuona were 
all cowled in cloud, and the ocean-river of the 
trades streamed without pause. As we crawled 
from under the immediate shelter of the land, we 
reached at last the limit of their influence. The 
wind fell upon our sails in puffs, which strength- 
ened and grew more continuous; presently the 
Casco heeled down to her day’s work; the whale- 
boat, quite outstripped, clung for a noisy moment 
to her quarter; the stipulated bread, rum, and 
tobacco were passed in; a moment more and the 
boat was in our wake, and our late pilots were 
cheering our departure. 
This was the more inspiriting as we were bound 
for scenes so different, and though on a brief 


168. UN THE SOU TH. Sie 


voyage, yet for a new province of creation. That 
wide field of ocean, called loosely the South Seas, 
extends from tropic to tropic, and from perhaps 120 
degrees W. to 150 degrees E., a parallelogram of 
one hundred degrees by forty-seven, where degrees 
are the most spacious. Much of it lies vacant, 
much is closely sown with isles, and the isles are 
of two sorts. No distinction is so continually dwelt 
upon in South Sea talk as that between the “ low ” 
and the “high” island, and there is none more 
broadly marked in nature. The Himalayas are not 
more different from the Sahara. On the one hand, 
and chiefly in groups of from eight to a dozen, 
volcanic islands rise above the sea; few reach an 
altitude of less than 4000 feet; one exceeds 13,000; 
their tops are often obscured in cloud, they are all 
clothed with various forests, all abound in food, 
and are all remarkable for picturesque and solemn 
scenery. On the other hand, we have the atoll; 
a thing of problematic origin and history, the re- 
puted creature of an insect apparently unidenti- 
fied; rudely annular in shape; enclosing a lagoon; 
rarely extending beyond a quarter of a mile at 
its chief width; often rising at its highest point 
to less than the stature of a man — man himself, 
the rat and the land crab, its chief inhabitants; 
not more variously supplied with plants; and offer- 
ing to the eye, even when perfect, only a ring of 
glittering beach and verdant foliage, enclosing and 
enclosed by the blue sea. 

In no quarter are the atolls so thickly congre- 
gated, in none are they so varied in size from the 


THE PAUMOTUS |. i6g 


greatest to the least, and in none is navigation so 
beset with perils, as in that archipelago that we 
were now to thread. The huge system of the 
trades is, for some reason, quite confounded by 
this multiplicity of reefs; the wind intermits, squalls 
are frequent from the west and south-west, hurri- 
canes are known. ‘The currents are, besides, in- 
extricably intermixed; dead reckoning becomes a 
farce; the charts are not to be trusted; and such 
is the number and similarity of these islands that, 
even when you have picked one up, you may be 
none the wiser. The reputation of the place is con- 
sequently infamous; insurance offices exclude it 
from their field, and it was not without misgiving 
that my captain risked the Casco in such waters. 
I believe, indeed, it is almost understood that 
yachts are to avoid this baffling archipelago; and 
it required all my instances — and all Mr. Otis’s 
private taste for adventure — to deflect our course 
across its midst. 

For a few days we sailed with a steady trade, 
and a steady westerly current setting us to leeward ; 
and toward sundown of the 7th it was supposed 
we should have sighted Takaroa, one of Cook’s 
so-called King George Islands. The sun set; yet 
awhile longer the old moon — semi-brilliant her- 
self, and with a silver belly, which was her suc- 
cessor — sailed among gathering clouds; she, too, 
deserted us; stars of every degree of sheen, and 
clouds of every variety of form disputed the sub- 
lustrous night; and still we gazed in vain for 
Takaroa. The mate stood on the bowsprit, his tall 


wo DN THE! SOUT H isha 


grey figure slashing up and down against the stars, 


and still 
nihil astra preter 
Vidit et undas. 


The rest of us were grouped at the port anchor 
davit, staring with no less assiduity, but with far 
less hope on the obscure horizon. Islands we be- 
held in plenty, but they were of “such stuff as 
dreams are made on,” and vanished at a wink, 
only to appear in other places; and by-and-by not 
only islands, but refulgent and revolving lights 
began to stud the darkness; light-houses of the 
mind or of the wearied optic nerve, solemnly shin- 
ing and winking as we passed. Atlength the mate 
himself despaired, scrambled on board agajn from 
his unrestful perch, and announced that we had 
missed our destination. He was the only man of 
practice in these waters, our sole pilot, shipped for 
that end at Tai-o-hae. If he declared we had 
missed Takaroa, it was not for us to quarrel with 
the fact, but, if we could, to explain it. We had 
certainly run down our southing. Our canted wake 
upon the sea and our somewhat drunken-looking 
course upon the chart both testified with no less 
certainty to an impetuous westward current. We 
had no choice but to conclude we were again set 
down to leeward; and the best we could do was 
to bring the Casco to the wind, keep a good watch, 
and expect morning. 

I slept that night, as was then my somewhat 
dangerous practice, on deck upon the cockpit bench. 
A stir at last awoke me, to see all the eastern 


Serge OPA TU Ment U-S, aaa 


heaven dyed with faint orange, the binnacle lamp 
already dulled against the brightness of the day, 
and the steersman leaning eagerly across the wheel. 
“There it is, sir!” he cried, and pointed in the 
very eyeball of the dawn. For awhile I could see 
‘nothing but the bluish ruins of the morning bank, 
which lay far along the horizon, like melting ice- 
bergs. Then the sun rose, ‘pierced a gap in these 
débris of vapours, and displayed an inconsiderable 
islet, flat as a plate upon the sea, and spiked with 
palms of disproportioned altitude. 

So far, so good. Here was certainly an atoll; 
and we were certainly got among the archipelago. 
But which? And where? The isle was too small 
for either Takaroa: in all our neighbourhood, in- 
deed, there was none so inconsiderable, save only 
Tikei; and Tikei, one of Roggewein’s so-called 
Pernicious Islands, seemed beside the question. At 
that rate, instead of drifting to the west, we must 
have fetched up thirty miles to windward. And 
how about the current? It had been setting us 
down, by observation, all these days: by the de- 
flection of our wake, it should be setting us down 
that moment. When had it stopped? When had 
it begun again? and what kind of torrent was 
that which had swept us eastward in the interval? 
To these questions, so typical of navigation in that 
range of isles, I have no answer. Such were at 
least the facts; Tikei our island turned out to be; 
and it was our first experience of the dangerous 
archipelago, to make our landfall thirty miles 
out. 


72 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


The sight of Tikei, thrown direct against the 
splendour of the morning, robbed of all its 
colour, and deformed with disproportioned trees 
like bristles on a broom, had scarce prepared us 
to be much in love with atolls. Later the same 
day we saw under more fit conditions the island 
of Taiaro. Lost in the Sea is possibly the mean- 
ing of the name. And it was so we saw it; lost 
in blue sea and sky: a ring of white beach, green 
underwood, and tossing palms, gem-like in colour; 
of a fairy, of a heavenly prettiness. The surf ran 
all around it, white as snow, and broke at one 
point, far to seaward, on what seems an uncharted 
reef. There was no smoke, no sign of man; in- 
deed, the isle is not inhabited, only visited at in- 
tervals. And yet a trader (Mr. Narii Salmon) 
was watching from the shore and wondering at 
the unexpected ship. I have spent since then long 
months upon low islands; I know the tedium of 
their undistinguished days; I know the burthen 
of their diet. With whatever envy we may have 
looked from the deck on these green coverts, it 
was with a tenfold greater that Mr. Salmon and 
his comrades saw us steer, in our trim ship, to 
seaward. 

The night fell lovely in the extreme. After the 
moon went down, the heaven was a thing to won- 
der at for stars. And as I lay in the cockpit and 
looked upon the steersman I was haunted by Emers 
son’s verses: 


And the lone seaman all the night 
Sails astonished among stars. 


THE PAUMOTUS _ 173 


By this glittering and imperfect brightness, about 
four bells in the first watch we made our third 
atoll, Raraka. The low line of the isle lay straight 
along the sky; so that I was at first reminded of 
a towpath, and we seemed to be mounting some 
engineered and navigable stream. Presently a red 
star appeared, about the height and brightness of 
a danger-signal, and with that my simile was 
changed; we seemed rather to skirt the embank- 
ment of a railway, and the eye began to look in- 
stinctively for the telegraph posts, and the ear to 
expect the coming of a train. Here and there, 
but rarely, faint tree-tops broke the level. And 
the sound of the surf accompanied us, now in a 
drowsy monotone, now with a menacing swing. 
The isle lay nearly east and west, barring our 
advance on Fakarava. We must, therefore, hug 
the coast until we gained the western end, where 
through a passage eight miles wide, we might 
sail southward between Raraka and the next isle, 
Kauehi. We had the wind free, a lightish air; 
but clouds of an inky blackness were beginning 
to rise, and at times it lightened — without thun- 
der. Something, I know not what, continually set 
us up upon the island. We lay more and more 
to the nor’'ard; and you would have thought the 
shore copied our manceuvre and outsailed us. Once 
and twice Raraka headed us again — again, in 
the sea fashion, the quite innocent steersman was 
abused — and again the Casco kept away. Had 
I been called on, with no more light than that of 
our experience, to draw the configuration of that 


1744 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


island, I should have shown a series of bow- 
window promontories, each overlapping the other 
to the nor’ard, and the trend of the land from the 
south-east to the north-west, and behold, on the 
chart it lay near east and west in a straight line. 

We had but just repeated our manceuvre and 
kept away — for not more than five minutes the 
railway embankment had been lost to view and 
the surf to hearing — when I was aware of land 
again, not only on the weather bow, but dead 
ahead. I played the part of the judicious lands- 
man, holding my peace till the last moment; and 
presently my mariners perceived it for themselves. 

““Land ahead!” said the steersman. 

“ By God, it’s Kauehi!”’ cried the mate. 

And so it was. And with that I began to be 
sorry for cartographers. We were scarce doing 
three and a half; and they asked me to believe 
that (in five minutes) we had dropped an island, 
passed eight miles of open water, and run almost 
high and dry upon the next. But my captain was 
more sorry for himself to be afloat in such a laby- 
rinth; laid the Casco to, with the log line up and 
down, and sat on the stern rail and watched it till 
the morning. He had enough of night in the 
Paumotus. 

By daylight on the 9th we began to skirt Kauehi, 
and had now an opportunity to see near at hand 
the geography of atolls. Here and there, where 
it was high, the farther side loomed up; here and 
there the near side dipped entirely and showed a 
broad path of water into the lagoon; here and 


THE PAUMOTUS _ Ws 


there both sides were equally abased, and we could 
look right through the discontinuous ring to the 
sea horizon on the south. Conceive, on a vast 
scale, the submerged hoop of the duck-hunter, 
trimmed with green rushes to conceal his head 
— water within, water without— you have the 
image of the perfect atoll. Conceive one that has 
been partly plucked of its rush fringe; you have 
the atoll of Kauehi. And for either shore of it 
at closer quarters, conceive the line of some old 
Roman highway traversing a wet morass, and here 
sunk out of view and there re-arising, crowned 
with a green tuft of thicket; only instead of the 
stagnant waters of a marsh, the live ocean now 
boiled against, now buried the frail barrier. Last 
night’s impression in the dark was thus confirmed 
by day, and not corrected. We sailed indeed by 
a mere causeway in the sea, of nature’s handiwork, 
yet of no greater magnitude than many of the 
works of man. 

The isle was uninhabited; it was all green brush 
and white sand, set in transcendently blue water; 
even the cocoa-palms were rare, though some of 
these completed the bright harmony of colour by 
hanging out a fan of golden yellow. For long 
there was no sign of life beyond the vegetable, 
and no sound but the continuous grumble of the 
surf. In silence and desertion these fair shores 
slipped past, and were submerged and rose again 
with clumps of thicket from the sea. And then 
a bird or two appeared, hovering and crying; 
swiftly these became more numerous, and pres- 


176 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


ently, looking ahead, we were aware of a vast 
effervescence of winged life. In this place the 
annular isle was mostly under water, carrying here 
and there on its submerged line a wooded islet. 
Over one of these the birds hung and flew with 
an incredible density like that of gnats or hiving 
bees; the mass flashed white and black, and heaved 
and quivered, and the screaming of the creatures 
rose over the voice of the surf in a shrill clatter- 
ing whirr. As you descend some inland valley a 
not dissimilar sound announces the nearness of a 
mill and pouring river. Some stragglers, as I said, 
came to meet our approach; a few still hung about 
the ship as we departed. The crying died away, 
the last pair of wings was left behind, and once 
more the low shores of Kauehi streamed past our 
eyes in silence like a picture. I supposed at the 
time that the birds lived, like ants or citizens, con- 
centred where we saw them. I have been told 
since (I know not if correctly) that the whole 
isle, or much of it, is similarly peopled; and that 
the effervescence at a single spot would be the 
mark of a boat’s crew of egg-hunters from one 
of the neighbouring inhabited atolls. So that here 
at Kauehi, as the day before at Taiaro, the Casco 
sailed by under the fire of unsuspected eyes. And 
one thing is surely true, that even on these ribbons 
of land an army might lie hid and no passing 
mariner divine its presence. 


CHAPTER II 


FAKARAVA: AN ATOLL AT HAND 


Y a little before noon we were running 
down the coast of our destination, Faka- 
tava: the air very light, the sea near 

smooth; though still we were accompanied by a 
continuous murmur from the beach, like the sound 
of a distant train. The isle is of a huge longi- 
tude, the enclosed lagoon thirty miles by ten or 
twelve, and the coral tow-path, which they call 
the land, some eighty or ninety miles by (pos- 
sibly) one furlong. That part by which we sailed 
was all raised; the underwood excellently green, 
the topping wood of cocoa-palms continuous — a 
mark, if I had known it, of man’s intervention. 
For once more, and once more unconsciously, we 
were within hail of fellow-creatures, and that va- 
cant beach was but a pstol-shot from the capital 
city of the archipelago. But the life of an atoll, 
unless it be enclosed, passes wholly on the shores 
of the lagoon; it is there the villages are seated, 
there the canoes ply and are drawn up; and the 
beach of the ocean is a place accursed and de- 
serted, the fit scene only for wizardry and ship- 
wreck, and in the native belief a haunting ground 
of murderous spectres. 


Im 


. 
7 


we IN THE SOULE Gia 


By-and-by we might perceive a breach in the 
low barrier; the woods ceased; a glittering point 
ran into the sea, tipped with an emerald shoal, the 
mark of entrance. As we drew near we met a 
little run of sea—the private sea of the lagoon 
having there its origin and end, and here, in the 
jaws of the gateway, trying vain conclusions with 
the more majestic heave of the Pacific. The Casco 
scarce avowed a shock; but there are times and 
circumstances when these harbour mouths of in- 
land basins vomit floods, deflecting, burying, and 
dismasting ships. For, conceive a lagoon perfectly 
sealed but in the one point, and that of merely 
navigable width; conceive the tide and wind to 
have heaped for hours together in that coral fold 
a superfluity of waters, and the tide to change 
and the wind fall — the open sluice of some great 
reservoirs at home will give an image of the 
unstemmable effluxion. 

We were scarce well headed for the pass before 
all heads were craned over the rail. For the water, 
shoaling under our board, became changed in a 
moment to surprising hues of blue and grey; and 
in its transparency the coral branched and blos- 
somed, and the fish of the inland sea cruised vis- 
ibly below us, stained and striped, and even beaked 
like parrots. I have paid in my time to view many 
curiosities; never one so curious as that first sight 
over the ship’s rail in the lagoon of Fakarava. 
But let not the reader be deceived with hope. I © 
have since entered, I suppose, some dozen atolls 
in different parts of the Pacific, and the experi- 


THE PAUMOTUS | 179 


ence has never been repeated. That exquisite hue 
and transparency of submarine day, and these 
shoals of rainbow fish, have not enraptured me 
again. 

Before we could raise our eyes from that engag- 
ing spectacle the schooner had slipped betwixt the 
pier-heads of the reef, and was already quite com- 
mitted to the sea within. The containing shores 
are so little erected, and the lagoon itself is so 
great, that, for the more part, it seemed to extend 
without a check to the horizon. Here and there, 
indeed, where the reef carried an inlet, like a 
signet-ring upon a finger, there would be a pencil- 
ling of palms; here and there, the green wall of 
wood ran solid for a length of miles; and on the 
port hand, under the highest grove of trees, a few 
houses sparkled white — Rotoava, the metropoli- 
tan settlement of the Paumotus. Hither we beat 
in three tacks, and came to an anchor close in 
shore, in the first smooth water since we had left 
San Francisco, five fathoms deep, where a man 
might look overboard all day at the vanishing 
cable, the coral patches, and the many-coloured 
fish. 

Fakarava was chosen to be the seat of Govern- 
ment from nautical considerations only. It is ec- 
centrically situate; the productions, even for a low 
island, poor; the population neither many nor — 
for Low Islanders — industrious. But the lagoon 
has two good passages, one to leeward, one to 
windward, so that in all states of the wind it can 
be left and entered, and this advantage, for a 


10 .IN:- DHE SOU THYVSEAS 


government of scattered islands, was decisive. A 
pier of coral, landing-stairs, a harbour light upon 
a staff and pillar, and two spacious Government 
bungalows in a handsome fence, give to the 
northern end of Rotoava a great air of conse- 
quence. This is confirmed on the one hand by 
an empty prison, on the other by a gendarmerie 
pasted over with hand-bills in Tahitian, land-law 
notices from Papeete, and republican sentiments 
from Paris, signed (a little after date) “ Jules 
Grévy, Perihidente.” Quite at the far end a bel- 
fried Catholic chapel concludes the town; and 
between, on a smooth floor of white coral sand 
and under the breezy canopy of cocoa-palms, the 
houses of the natives stand irregularly scattered, 
now close on the lagoon for the sake of the breeze, 
now back under the palms for love of shadow. 
Not a soul was to be seen. But for the thunder 
of the surf on the far side, it seemed you might 
have heard a pin drop anywhere about that capital 
city. There was something thrilling in the unex- 
pected silence, something yet more so in the un- 
expected sound. Here before us a sea reached 
to the horizon, rippling like an inland mere; and 
behold! close at our back another sea assaulted 
with assiduous fury the reverse of the position. 
At night the lantern was run up and lit a vacant 
pier. In one house lights were seen and voices 
heard, where the population (I was told) sat play- 
ing cards. A little beyond, from deep in the dark- 
ness of the palm-grove, we saw the glow and smelt 
the aromatic odour of a coal of cocoa-nut husk, @ 


THE PAUMOTUS 181 


relic of the evening kitchen, Crickets sang: some 
shrill thing whistled in a tuft of weeds; and the 
mosquito hummed and stung. There was no other 
trace that night of man, bird, or insect in the isle. 
The moon, now three days old, and as yet but a 
silver crescent on a still visible sphere, shone 
through the palm canopy with vigorous and scat- 
tered lights. The alleys where we walked were 
smoothed and weeded like a boulevard; here and 
there were plants set out; here and there dusky 
cottages clustered in the shadow, some with ve- 
randas. A public garden by night, a rich and 
fashionable watering-place in a by-season, offer 
sights and vistas not dissimilar. And still, on the 
one side, stretched the lapping mere, and from the 
other the deep sea still growled in the night. But 
it was most of all on board, in the dead hours, 
when I had been better sleeping, that the spell of 
Fakarava seized and held me. The moon was 
down. The harbour lantern and two of the greater 
planets drew vari-coloured wakes on the lagoon. 
From shore the cheerful watch-cry of cocks rang 
out at intervals above the organ-point of surf. 
And the thought of this depopulated capital, this 
protracted thread of annular island with its crest 
of cocoa-palms and fringe of breakers, and that 
tranquil inland sea that stretched before me till 
it touched the stars, ran in my head for hours 
with delight. 

So long as I stayed upon that isle these thoughts 
were constant. I lay down to sleep, and woke 
again with an unblunted sense of my surroundings. 


%2 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


I was never weary of calling up the image of 
that narrow causeway, on which I had my dwell- 
ing, lying coiled like a serpent, tail to mouth, 
in the outrageous ocean, and I was never weary 
of passing —a mere quarterdeck parade — from 
the one side to the other, from the shady, habit- 
able shores of the lagoon to the blinding desert 
and uproarious breakers of the opposite beach. 
The sense of insecurity in such a thread of resi- 
dence is more than fanciful. Hurricanes and tidal- 
waves overleap these humble obstacles; Oceanus 
remembers his strength, and, where houses stood 
and palms flourished, shakes his white beard again 
over the barren coral. Fakarava itself has suf- 
fered; the trees immediately beyond my house 
were all of recent replantation; and Anaa is only 
now recovered from a heavier stroke. I knew one 
who was then dwelling in the isle. He told me 
that he and two ship captains walked to the sea- 
beach. There for awhile they viewed the on- 
coming breakers, till one of the captains clapped 
suddenly his hand before his eyes and cried aloud 
that he could endure no longer to behold them. 
This was in the afternoon; in the dark hours of 
the night the sea burst upon the island like a 
flood; the settlement was razed, all but the church 
and presbytery; and, when day returned, the sur- 
vivors saw themselves clinging in an abattis of 
uprooted cocoa-palms and ruined houses. 

Danger is but a small consideration. But men 
are more nicely sensible of a discomfort; and the 
atoll is a discomfortable home. There are some, 


LHR PAUMOTUS 183 


and these probably ancient, where a deep soil has 
formed and the most valuable fruit-trees prosper. 
I have walked in one, with equal admiration and 
surprise, through a forest of huge breadfruits, eat- 
ing bananas and stumbling among taro as I went. 
This was in the atoll of Namorik in the Marshall 
group, and stands alone in my experience. To 
give the opposite extreme, which is yet far more 
near the average, I will describe the soil and pro- 
ductions of Fakarava. The surface of that nar- 
row strip is for the more part of broken coral 
limestone, like volcanic clinkers, and excruciating 
to the naked foot; in some atolls, I believe, not 
in Fakarava, it gives a fine metallic ring when 
struck. Here and there you come upon a bank 
of sand, exceeding fine and white, and these parts 
are the least productive. The plants (such as they 
are) spring from and love the broken coral, whence 
they grow with that wonderful verdancy that 
makes the beauty of the atoll from the sea. The 
cocoa-palm in particular luxuriates in that stern 
solum, striking down his roots to the brackish, 
percolated water, and bearing his green head in 
the wind with every evidence of health and pleas- 
ure. And yet even the cocoa-palm must be helped 
in infancy with some extraneous nutriment, and 
through much of the low archipelago there is 
planted with each nut a piece of ship’s biscuit 
and a rusty nail. The pandanus comes next in 
importance, being also a food tree; and he, too, 
does bravely. A green bush called miki runs 
everywhere; occasionally a purao is seen; and 


14 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


there are several useless weeds. According to 
M. Cuzent, the whole number of plants on an 
atoll such as Fakarava will scarce exceed, even if 
it reaches to, one score. Not a blade of grass 
appears; not a grain of humus, save when a sack 
or two has been imported to make the semblance 
of a garden; such gardens as bloom in cities on 
the window-sill. Insect life is sometimes dense; 
a cloud of mosquitos, and, what is far worse, a 
plague of flies blackening our food, have some- 
times driven us from a meal on Apemama; and 
even in Fakarava the mosquitos were a pest. The 
land crab may be seen scuttling to his hole, and 
at night the rats besiege the houses and the artifi- 
cial gardens. The crab is good eating; possibly 
so is the rat; I have not tried. Pandanus fruit 
is made, in the Gilberts, into an agreeable sweet- 
meat, such as a man may trifle with at the end 
of a long dinner; for a substantial meal I have 
no use for it. The rest of the food-supply, in a 
destitute atoll such as Fakarava, can be summed 
up in the favourite jest of the archipelago — cocoa- 
nut beefsteak. Cocoa-nut green, cocoa-nut ripe, 
cocoa-nut germinated; cocoa-nut to eat and cocoa- 
nut to drink; cocoa-nut raw and cooked, cocoa- 
nut hot and cold — such is the bill of fare. And 
some of the entrées are no doubt delicious. The 
germinated nut, cooked in the shell and eaten with 
a spoon, forms a good pudding; cocoa-nut milk 
— the expressed juice of a ripe nut, not the water 
of a green one— goes well in coffee, and is a 
valuable adjunct in cookery through the South 


-THE PAUMOTUS | 185 


Seas; and cocoa-nut salad, if you be a million- 
aire, and can afford to eat the value of a field 
of corn for your dessert, is a dish to be remem- 
bered with affection. But when all is done there 
is a sameness, and the Israelites of the Low Islands 
murmur at their manna. 

The reader may think I have forgot the sea. 
The two beaches do certainly abound in life, and 
they are strangely different. In the lagoon the 
water shallows slowly on a bottom of fine slimy 
sand, dotted with clumps of growing coral. Then 
comes a strip of tidal beach on which the ripples 
lap. In the coral clumps the great holy-water clam 
(Tridacna) grows plentifully; a little deeper lie 
the beds of the pearl-oyster and sail the resplendent 
fish that charmed us at our entrance; and these 
are all more or less vigorously coloured. But the 
other shells are white like lime, or faintly tinted 
with a little pink, the palest possible display; many 
of them dead besides, and badly rolled. On the 
ocean side, on the mounds of the steep beach, over 
all the width of the reef right out to where the 
surf is bursting, in every cranny, under every scat- 
tered fragment of the coral, an incredible plenty 
of marine life displays the most wonderful variety 
and brilliancy of hues. The reef itself has no 
passage of colour but is imitated by some shell. 
Purple and red and white, and green and yellow, 
pied and striped and clouded, the living shells wear 
in every combination the livery of the dead reef 
— if the reef be dead — so that the eye is continu- 
ally baffled and the collector continually deceived. 


136 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


I have taken shells for stones and stones for shells, 
the one as often as the other. A prevailing char- 
acter of the coral is to be dotted with small spots 
of red, and it is wonderful how many varieties of 
shell have adopted the same fashion and donned 
the disguise of the red spot. A shell I had found 
in plenty in the Marquesas I found here also un- 
changed in all things else, but there were the red 
spots. A lively little crab wore the same marking. 
‘The case of the hermit or soldier crab was more 
conclusive, being the result of conscious choice. 
This nasty little wrecker, scavenger, and squatter 
has learned the value of a spotted house; so it be 
of the right colour he will choose the smallest 
shard, tuck himself in a mere corner of a broken 
whorl, and go about the world half naked; but \ 
I never found him in this imperfect armour unless 
it was marked with the red spot. 

Some two hundred yards distant is the beach 
of the lagoon. Collect the shells from each, set 
them side by side, and you would suppose they 
came from different hemispheres; the one so pale, 
the other so brilliant; the one prevalently white, 
the other of a score of hues, and infected with the 
scarlet spot like a disease. This seems the more 
strange, since the hermit crabs pass and repass the 
island, and I have met them by the Residency 
well, which is about central, journeying either 
way. Without doubt many of the shells in the 
lagoon are dead. But why are they dead? With- 
out doubt the living shells have a very different 
background set for imitation. But why are these 


THE PAUMOTUS 187 


so different? We are only on the threshold of the 
mysteries. 

Either beach, I have said, abounds with life. On 
the seaside and in certain atolls this profusion of 
vitality is even shocking: the rock underfoot is 
mined with it. I have broken off — notably in 
Funafuti and Arorai?— great lumps of ancient 
weathered rock that rang under my blows like iron, 
and the fracture has been full of pendent worms 
as long as my hand, as thick as a child’s finger, of 
a slightly pinkish white, and set as close as three 
or even four to the square inch. Even in the 
lagoon, where certain shell-fish seem to sicken, 
others (it is notorious) prosper exceedingly and 
make the riches of these islands. Fish, too, abound; 
the lagoon is a closed fish-pond, such as might re- 
joice the fancy of an abbot; sharks swarm there, 
and chiefly round the passages, to feast upon this 
plenty, and you would suppose that man had only 
to prepare his angle. Alas! it is not so. Of those 
painted fish that came in hordes about the entering 
Casco, some bore poisonous spines, and others were 
poisonous if eaten. The stranger must refrain, or 
take his chance of painful and dangerous sickness. 
The native, on his own isle, is a safe guide; trans- 
plant him to the next, and he is helpless as yourself. 
For it is a question both of time and place. A fish 
caught in a lagoon may be deadly; the same fish 
caught the same day at sea, and only a few hun- 
dred yards without the passage, will be wholesome 
eating: in a neighbouring isle perhaps the case will 


1 Arorai is in the Gilberts, Funafuti in the Ellice Islands. — Ep, 


i8f UN} DHE «SO Ud Et temas 


be reversed; and perhaps a fortnight later you 
shall be able to eat of them indifferently from 
within and from without. According to the na- 
tives, these bewildering vicissitudes are ruled by 
the movement of the heavenly bodies. The beau- 
tiful planet Venus plays a great part in all island 
tales and customs; and among other functions, 
some of them more awful, she regulates the season 
of good fish. With Venus in one phase, as we had 
her, certain fish were poisonous in the lagoon: with 
Venus in another, the same fish was harmless and 
a valued article of diet. White men explain these 
changes by the phases of the coral. 

It adds a last touch of horror to the thought of 
this precarious angular gangway in the sea, that 
even what there is of it is not of honest rock, but 
organic, part alive, part putrescent; even the clean 
sea and the bright fish about it poisoned, the most 
stubborn boulder burrowed in by worms, the light- 
est dust venomous as an apothecary’s drugs.’ 


CHAPTER III 


A HOUSE TO LET IN A LOW ISLAND 


EVER populous, it was yet by a chapter 
N of accidents that I found the island so 

deserted that no sound of human life 
diversified the hours; that we walked in that trim 
public garden of a town, among closed houses, 
without even a lodging-bill in a window to prove 
some tenancy in the back quarters; and, when we 
visited the Government bungalow, that Mr. Donat, 
acting Vice-Resident, greeted us alone, and enter- 
tained us with cocoa-nut punches in the Sessions 
Hall and seat of judgment of that widespread 
archipelago, our glasses standing arrayed with 
summonses and census returns. The unpopularity 
of a late Vice-Resident had begun the movement 
of exodus, his native employés resigning court 
appointments and retiring each to his own cocoa- 
patch in the remoter districts of the isle. Upon the 
back of that, the Governor in Papeete issued a 
decree: All land in the Paumotus must be defined 
and registered by a certain date. Now, the folk 
of the archipelago are half nomadic; a man can 
scarce be said to belong to a particular atoll; he 
belongs to several, perhaps holds a stake and counts 


190 IN THE SOU TI Sa 


cousinship in half a score; and the inhabitants of 
Rotoava in particular, man, woman, and child, and 
from the gendarme to the Mormon prophet and 
the schoolmaster, owned — I was going to say land 
— owned at least coral blocks and growing cocoa- 
palms in some adjacent isle. Thither — from the 
gendarme to the babe in arms, the pastor followed 
by his flock, the schoolmaster carrying along with 
him his scholars, and the scholars with their books 
and slates—they had taken ship some two days 
previous to our arrival, and were all now engaged 
disputing boundaries. Fancy overhears the shrill- 
ness of their disputation mingle with the surf and 
scatter sea-fowl. It was admirable to observe the 
completeness of their flight, like that of hibernating 
birds; nothing left but empty houses, like old nests 
to be reoccupied in spring; and even the harmless 
necessary dominie borne with them in their trans- 
migration. Fifty odd set out, and only seven, I 
was informed, remained. But when I made a feast 
on board the Casco, more than seven, and nearer 
seven times seven, appeared to be my guests. 
Whence they appeared, how they were summoned, 
whither they vanished when the feast was eaten, 
I have no guess. In view of Low Island tales, and 
that awful frequentation which makes men avoid 
the seaward beaches of an atoll; some twoscore of 
those that ate with us may have returned, for the 
occasion, from the kingdom of the dead. 

It was this solitude that put it in our minds to 
hire a house, and become, for the time being, in- 
dwellers of the isle —a practice I have ever since, 


THE PAUMOTUS io1 


when it was possible, adhered to. Mr. Donat placed 
us, with that intent, under the convoy of one Ta- 
niera Mahinui, who combined the incongruous char- 
acters of catechist and convict. The reader may 
smile, but I affirm he was well qualified for either 
part. For that of convict, first of all, by a good 
substantial felony, such as in all lands casts the 
perpetrator in chains and dungeons. Taniera was 
a man of birth — the chief awhile ago, as he loved 
to tell, of a district in Anaa of 800 souls. In an 
evil hour it occurred to the authorities in Papeete 
to charge the chiefs with the collection of the taxes. 
It is a question if much were collected; it is certain 
that nothing was handed on; and Taniera, who 
had distinguished himself by a visit to Papeete and 
some high living in restaurants, was chosen for the 
scapegoat. The reader must understand that not 
Taniera but the authorities in Papeete were first 
in fault. The charge imposed was disproportioned. 
I have not yet heard of any Polynesian capable of 
such a burthen; honest and upright Hawaiians — 
one in particular, who was admired even by the 
whites as an inflexible magistrate — have stumbled 
in the narrow path of the trustee. And Taniera, 
when the pinch came, scorned to denounce accom- 
plices; others had shared the spoil, he bore the 
penalty alone. He was condemned in five years. 
The period, when I had the pleasure of his friend- 
ship, was not yet expired; he still drew prison 
rations, the sole and not unwelcome reminder of 
his chains, and, I believed, looked forward to the 
date of his enfranchisement with mere alarm. For 


192 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


he had no sense of shame in the position; com- 
plained of nothing but the defective table of his 
place of exile; regretted nothing but the fowls and 
eggs and fish of his own more favoured island. 
And as for his parishioners, they did not think one 
hair the less of him. A school-boy, mulcted in ten 
thousand lines of Greek and dwelling sequestered 
in the dormitories, enjoys unabated consideration 
from his fellows. So with Taniera: a marked 
man, not a dishonoured; having fallen under the 
lash of the unthinkable gods; a Job, perhaps, or 
say a Taniera in the den of lions. Songs are 
likely made and sung about this saintly Robin 
Hood. On the other hand, he was even highly 
qualified for his office in the Church; being by 
nature a grave, considerate, and kindly man; his 
face rugged and serious, his smile bright; the 
master of several trades, a builder both of boats 
and houses; endowed with a fine pulpit voice; 
endowed besides with such a gift of eloquence that 
at the grave of the late chief of Fakarava he set 
all the assistants weeping. I never met a man of 
a mind more ecclesiastical; he loved to dispute and 
to inform himself of doctrine and the history of 
sects; and when I showed him the cuts in a volume 
of Chambers’s Encyclopedia — except for one of 
an ape—reserved his whole enthusiasm for car- 
dinals’ hats, censers, candlesticks, and cathedrals. 
Methought when he looked upon the cardinal’s hat 
a voice said low in his ear: “ Your foot is on the 
ladder.” 

Under the guidance of Taniera we were soon 


THE PAUMOTUS 193 


installed in what I believe to have been the best 
appointed private house in Fakarava. It stood just 
beyond the church in an oblong patch of cultivation. 
More than three hundred sacks of soil were im- 
ported from Tahiti for the Residency garden; and 
this must shortly be renewed, for the earth blows 
away, sinks in crevices of the coral, and is sought 
for at last in vain. I know not how much earth 
had gone to the garden of my villa; some at least, 
for an alley of prosperous bananas ran to the 
gate, and over the rest of the enclosure, which was 
covered with the usual clinker-like fragments of 
smashed coral, not only cocoa-palms and mikis but 
also fig-trees flourished, all of a delicious green- 
ness. Of course there was no blade of grass. In 
front a picket fence divided us from the white 
road, the palm-fringed margin of the lagoon, and 
the lagoon itself, reflecting clouds by day and stars 
by night. At the back, a bulwark of uncemented 
coral enclosed us from the narrow belt of bush and 
the nigh ocean beach where the seas thundered, 
the roar and wash of them still humming in the 
chambers of the house. | 

This itself was of one storey, verandaed front 
and back. It contained three rooms, three sewing- 
machines, three sea-chests, chairs, tables, a pair of 
beds, a cradle, a double-barrelled gun, a pair of 
enlarged coloured photographs, a pair of coloured 
prints after Wilkie and Mulready, and a French 
lithograph with the legend: “ Le brigade du Géné- 
ral Lepasset briilant son drapeau devant Metz.’ 
Under the stilts of the house a stove was rusting, 


i944 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


till we drew it forth and put it in commission. 
Not far off was the burrow in the coral whence 
we supplied ourselves with brackish water. There 
was live stock, besides, on the estate — cocks and 
hens and a brace of ill-regulated cats, whom Taniera 
came every morning with the sun to feed on grated 
cocoa-nut. His voice was our regular réveillé, ring- 
ing pleasantly about the garden: ‘“ Pooty — pooty 
— poo — poo — poo!” 

Far as we were from the public offices, the near- 
ness of the chapel made our situation what is called 
eligible in advertisements, and gave us a side look 
on some native life. Every morning, as soon as 
he had fed the fowls, Taniera set the bell a-going 
in the small belfry; and the faithful, who were not 
very numerous, gathered to prayers. I was once 
present: it was the Lord’s day, and seven females 
and eight males composed the congregation. A 
woman played precentor, starting with a longish 
note; the catechist joined in upon the second bar; 
and then the faithful in a body. Some had printed 
hymn-books which they followed; some of the rest 
filled up with ‘ eh—eh—eh,” the Paumotuan 
tol-de-rol. After the hymn, we had an antiphonal 
prayer or two; and then Taniera rose from the 
front bench, where he had been sitting in his cate- 
chist’s robes, passed within the altar-rails, opened 
his Tahitian Bible, and began to preach from notes. 
I understood one word — the name of God; but 
the preacher managed his voice with taste, used 
rare and expressive gestures, and made a strong 
impression of sincerity. The plain service, the 


THE PAUMOTUS 195 


vernacular Bible, the hymn-tunes mostly on an 
English pattern — “‘ God save the Queen,” I was 
informed, a special favourite,— all, save some 
paper flowers upon the altar, seemed not merely 
but austerely Protestant. It is thus the Catholics 
have met their Low Island proselytes half-way. 

Taniera had the keys of our house; it was with 
him I made my bargain, if that could be called a 
bargain in which all was remitted to my generosity ; 
it was he who fed the cats and poultry, he who came 
to call and pick a meal with us like an acknow- 
ledged friend; and we long fondly supposed he 
was our landlord. This belief was not to bear the 
test of experience; and, as my chapter has to relate, 
no certainty succeeded it. 

We passed some days of airless quiet and great 
heat; shell-gatherers were warned from the ocean 
beach, where sunstroke waited them from ten till 
four; the highest palm hung motionless, there was 
no voice audible but that of the sea on the far side. 
At last, about four of a certain afternoon, long 
cats-paws flawed the face of the lagoon; and pres- 
ently in the tree-tops there awoke the grateful 
bustle of the trades, and all the houses and alleys 
of the island were fanned out. To more than one 
enchanted ship, that had lain long becalmed in view 
of the green shore, the wind brought deliverance; 
and by daylight on the morrow a schooner and two 
cutters lay moored in the port of Rotoava. Nor 
only in the outer sea, but in the lagoon itself, a 
certain traffic woke with the reviving breeze; and 
among the rest one Francois, a half-blood, set sail 


oot LN Re 3S O70 Rae ee 


with the first light in his.own half-decked cutter. 
He had held before a court appointment; being, I 
believe, the Residency sweeper-out. Trouble aris- 
ing with the unpopular Vice-Resident, he had 
thrown his honours down, and fled to the far parts 
of the atoll to plant cabbages — or at least cocoa- 
palms. Thence he was now driven by such need 
as even a Cincinnatus must acknowledge, and fared 
for the capital city, the seat of his late functions, 
to exchange half a ton of copra for necessary flour. 
And here, for awhile, the story leaves to tell of his 
voyaging. 

It must tell, instead, of our house, where, toward 
seven at night, the catechist came suddenly in with 
his pleased air of being welcome; armed besides 
with a considerable bunch of keys. These he pro- 
ceeded to try on the sea-chests, drawing each in 
turn from its place against the wall. Heads of 
strangers appeared in the doorway and volunteered 
suggestions. All in vain. Either they were the 
wrong keys or the wrong boxes, or the wrong man 
was trying them. For a little Taniera fumed and 
fretted; then had recourse to the more summary 
method of the hatchet; one of the chests was 
broken open, and an armful of clothing, male and 
female, baled out and handed to the strangers on 
the veranda. 

These were Francois, his wife, and their child. 
About eight A. M., in the midst of the lagoon, their 
cutter had capsized in jibbing. They got her righted, 
and though she was still full of water put the child 
on board. The mainsail had been carried away, 


“tHE PAUMOTUS | ig7 


but the jib still drew her sluggishly along, and 
Francois and the woman swam astern and worked 
the rudder with their hands. The cold was cruel; 
the fatigue, as time went on, became excessive; 
and in that preserve of sharks, fear hunted them. 
Again and again, Francois, the half-breed, would 
have desisted and gone down; but the woman, 
whole blood of an amphibious race, still supported 
him with cheerful words. I am reminded of a 
woman of Hawaii who swam with her husband, I 
dare not say how many miles, in a high sea, and 
came ashore at last with his dead body in her arms. 
It was about five in the evening, after nine hours’ 
swimming, that Francois and his wife reached land 
at Rotoava. The gallant fight was won, and in- 
stantly the more childish side of native character 
appears. They had supped, and told and retold 
their story, dripping as they came; the flesh of 
the woman, whom Mrs. Stevenson helped to’ shift, 
was cold as stone; and Francois, having changed 
to a dry cotton shirt and trousers, passed the re- 
mainder of the evening on my floor and between 
open doorways, in a thorough draught. Yet Fran- 
cois, the son of a French father, speaks excellent 
French himself and seems intelligent. 

It was our first idea that the catechist, true to 
his evangelical vocation, was clothing the naked 
from his superfluity. Then it came out that 
Francois was but dealing with his own. The 
clothes were his, so was the chest, so was the 
house. Francois was in fact the landlord. Yet 
you observe he had hung back on the veranda 


1998 IN TWEE $0.0 Tit eos a 


while Taniera tried his ’prentice hand upon the 
locks; and even now, when his true character ap- 
peared, the only use he made of the estate was 
to leave the clothes of his family drying on the 
fence. “Taniera was still the friend of the house, 
still fed the poultry, still came about us on his 
daily visits, Francois, during the remainder of his 
stay, holding bashfully aloof. And there was 
stranger matter. Since Francois had lost the 
whole load of his cutter, the half ton of copra, 
an axe, bowls, knives, and clothes — since he had 
in a manner to begin the world again, and his 
necessary flour was not yet bought or paid for 
—I proposed to advance him what he needed on 
the rent. To my enduring amazment he refused, 
and the reason he gave—if that can be called 
a reason which but darkens counsel — was that 
‘Laniera was his friend. His friend, you observe; 
not his creditor. I inquired into that, and was 
assured that Taniera, an exile in a strange isle, 
might possibly be in debt himself, but certainly 
was no man’s creditor. 

Very early one morning we were awakened by 
a bustling presence in the yard, and found our — 
camp had been surprised by a tall, lean, old na- 
tive lady, dressed in what were obviously widow’s 
weeds. You could see at a glance she was a 
notable woman, a housewife, sternly practical, alive 
with energy, and with fine possibilities of temper. 
Indeed there was nothing native about her but the 
skin; and the type abounds, and is everywhere 
respected, nearer home. It did us good to see 


THE) PAUMO:T.US 19g 


her scour the grounds, examining the plants and 
chickens; watering, feeding, trimming them; tak- 
ing angry, purpose-like possession. When she 
neared the house our sympathy abated; when she 
came to the broken chest I wished I were else- 
where. We had scarce a word in common; but 
her whole lean body spoke for her with indignant 
eloquence. “My chest!” it cried, with a stress 
on the possessive. “My chest— broken open! 
This is a fine state of things!” I hastened to lay 
the blame where it belonged—on Francois and 
his wife—and found I had made things worse 
instead of better. She repeated the names at first 
with incredulity, then with despair. Awhile she 
seemed stunned, next fell to disembowelling the 
box, piling the goods on the floor, and visibly 
computing the extent of Francois’s ravages; and 
presently after she was observed in high speech 
with Taniera, who seemed to hang an ear like 
one reproved. 

Here, then, by all known marks, should be my 
landlady at last; here was every character of the 
proprietor fully developed. Should I not approach 
her on the still depending question of my rent? 
I carried the point to an adviser. ‘‘ Nonsense!” 
he cried. “ That’s the old woman, the mother. 
It doesn’t belong to her. I believe that’s the 
man the house belongs to,’ and he pointed to one 
of the coloured photographs on the wall. On this 
I gave up all desire of understanding; and when 
the time came for me to leave, in the judgment- 
hall of the archipelago, and with the awful coun- 


aco (EN GT HE] SO1\GeT He sia 


tenance of the acting Governor, I duly paid my 
rent to Taniera. He was satisfied, and so was I. 
But what had he to do with it? Mr. Donat, 
acting magistrate and a man of kindred blood, 
could throw no light upon the mystery; a plain 
private person, with a taste for letters, cannot be 
expected to do more. 


CHAPTER IV 


TRAITS AND SECTS IN THE PAUMOTUS 


HE most careless reader must have re- 
marked a change of air since the Mar- 
quesas. The house, crowded with effects, 
the bustling housewife counting her possessions, 
the serious, indoctrinated island pastor, the long 
fight for life in the lagoon: here are traits of a 
new world. I read in a pamphlet (I will not give 
the author’s name) that the Marquesan especially 
resembles the Paumotuan. I should take the two 
races, though so near in neighbourhood, to be ex- 
tremes of Polynesian diversity. The Marquesan 
is certainly the most beautiful of human races, and 
one of the tallest-——-the Paumotuan averaging a 
good inch shorter, and not even handsome; the 
Marquesan open-handed, inert, insensible to reli- 
gion, childishly self-indulgent — the Paumotuan 
greedy, hardy, enterprising, a religious disputant, 
and with a trace of the ascetic character. 

Yet a few years ago, and the people of the 
archipelago were crafty savages. Their isles 
might be called sirens’ isles, not merely from the 
attraction they exerted on the passing mariner. 
but from the perils that awaited him on shore. 


202 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


Even to this day, in certain outlying islands, 
danger lingers; and the civilised Paumotuan 
dreads to land and hesitates to accost his back- 
ward brother. But, except in these, to-day the 
peril is a memory. When our generation were 
yet in the cradle and playroom it was still a liv- 
ing fact. Between 1830 and 1840, Hao, for in- 
stance, was a place of the most dangerous approach, 
where ships were seized and crews kidnapped. As 
late as 1856, the schooner Sarah Ann sailed from | 
Papeete and was seen no more. She had women 
on board, and children, the captain’s wife, a nurse- 
maid, a baby, and the two young sons of a Cap- 
tain Steven on their way to the mainland for 
schooling. All were supposed to have perished 
in a squall. A year later, the captain of the Julia, 
coasting along the island variously called Bligh, 
Lagoon, and Tematangi, saw armed natives fol- 
low the course of his schooner, clad in many- 
coloured stuffs. Suspicion was at once aroused; 
the mother of the lost children was profuse of 
money; and one expedition having found the place 
deserted, and returned content with firing a few 
shots, she raised and herself accompanied another. 
None appeared to greet or to oppose them; they 
roamed awhile among abandoned huts and empty 
thickets; then formed two parties and set forth 
to beat, from end to end, the pandanus jungle of 
the island. One man remained alone by the 
landing-place — Teina, a chief of Anaa, leader of 
the armed natives who made the strength of the 
expedition. Now that his comrades were departed 


me, PAU MOTUS 203 


this way and that, on their laborious exploration, 
the silence fell profound; and this silence was the 
ruin of the islanders. A sound of stones rattling 
caught the ear of Teina. He looked, thinking to 
perceive a crab, and saw instead the brown hand 
of a human being issue from a fissure in the 
ground. A shout recalled the search parties and 
announced their doom to the buried caitiffs. In 
the cave below, sixteen were found crouching 
among human bones and singular and horrid curi- 
osities. One was a head of golden hair, supposed 
to be a relic of the captain’s wife; another was 
half of the body of a European child, sun-dried 
and stuck upon a stick, doubtless with some design 
of wizardry. 

The Paumotuan is eager to be rich. He saves, 
grudges, buries money, fears not work. For a 
dollar each, two natives passed the hours of day- 
light cleaning our ship’s copper. It was strange 
to see them so indefatigable and so much at ease 
in the water — working at times with their pipes 
lighted, the smoker at times submerged and only 
the glowing bowl above the surface; it was 
stranger still to think they were next congeners to 
the incapable Marquesan. But the Paumotuan not 
only saves, grudges, and works, he steals besides; 
or, to be more precise, he swindles. He will never 
deny a debt, he only flees his creditor. He is 
always keen for an advance; so soon as he has 
fingered it he disappears. He knows your ship; 
so soon as it nears one island, he is off to an- 
other. You may think you know his name; he 


2004 IN (THE SOUT HS EAS 


has already changed it. Pursuit in that infinity 
of isles were fruitless. The result can be given 
in a nut-shell. It has been actually proposed in 
a Government report to secure debts by taking a 
photograph of the debtor; and the other day in 
Papeete credits on the Paumotus to the amount 
of sixteen thousand pounds were sold for less than 
forty — quatre cent mille francs pour moms de 
mule francs. Even so, the purchase was thought 
hazardous; and only the man who made it and 
who had special opportunities could have dared to 
give so much. 

The Paumotuan is sincerely attached to those 
of his own blood and household. A touching affec- 
tion sometimes unites wife and husband. Their 
children, while they are alive, completely rule them; 
after they are dead, their bones or their mummies 
are often jealously preserved and carried from atoll 
to atoll in the wanderings of the family. I was 
told there were many houses in Fakarava with the 
mummy of a child locked in a sea-chest; after I 
heard it, | would glance a little jealously at those 
by my own bed; in that cupboard, also, it was 
possible there was a tiny skeleton. 

The race seems in a fair way to survive. From 
fifteen islands, whose rolls I had occasion to con- 
sult, | found a proportion of 59 births to 47 deaths 
for 1887. Dropping three out of the fifteen, there 
remained for the other twelve the comfortable ratio 
of 50 births to 32 deaths. Long habits of hard- 
ship and activity doubtless explain the contrast 
with the Marquesan figures. But the Paumotuan 


THE PAUMOTUS 20s 


displays, besides, a certain concern for health and the 
rudiments of a sanitary discipline. Public talk with 
these free-spoken people plays the part of the Con- 
tagious Diseases Act; incomers to fresh islands 
anxiously inquire if all be well; and syphilis, when 
contracted, is successfully treated with indigenous 
herbs. Like their neighbours of Tahiti, from 
whom they have perhaps imbibed the error, they 
regard leprosy with comparative indifference, ele- 
phantiasis with disproportionate fear. But, unlike 
indeed to the Tahitian, their alarm puts on the 
guise of self-defence. Any one stricken with this 
painful and ugly malady is confined to the ends 
of villages, denied the use of paths and highways, 
and condemned to transport himself between his 
house and cocoa-patch by water only, his very foot- 
print being held infectious. Fe’efe’e being a crea- 
ture of marshes and the sequel of malarial fever, is 
not original in atolls. On the single isle of Ma- 
katea, where the lagoon is now a marsh, the dis- 
ease has made a home. Many suffer: they are 
excluded (if Mr. Wilmot be right) from much of 
the comfort of society; and it is believed they take 
a secret vengeance. The dejections of the sick are 
considered highly poisonous. Early in the morn- 
ing, it is narrated, aged and malicious persons 
creep into the sleeping village, and stealthily make 
water at the doors of the houses of young men. 
Thus they propagate disease; thus they breathe 
on and obliterate comeliness and health, the ob- 
jects of their envy. Whether horrid fact or 
more abominable legend, it equally depicts that 


2906 IN: THE 'SOUTH SEAS 


something bitter and energetic which distinguishes 
Paumotuan man. 

The archipelago is divided between two main 
religions, Catholic and Mormon. ‘They front each 
other proudly with a false air of permanence; yet 
are but shapes, their membership in a perpetual 
flux. The Mormon attends mass with devotion; 
the Catholic sits attentive at a Mormon sermon, 
and to-morrow each may have transferred alle- 
giance. One man had been a pillar of the Church 
of Rome for fifteen years; his wife dying, he de- 
cided that must be a poor religion that could not 
save a man his wife, and turned Mormon. Ac- 
cording to one informant, Catholicism was the 
more fashionable in health, but on the approach 
of sickness it was judged prudent to secede. As 
a Mormon, there were five chances out of six you 
might recover; as a Catholic, your hopes were 
small; and this opinion is perhaps founded on the 
comfortable rite of unction. 

We all know what Catholics are, whether in the 
Paumotus or at home. But the Paumotuan Mor- 
mon seemed a phenomenon apart. He marries 
but the one wife, uses the Protestant Bible, observes 
Protestant forms of worship, forbids the use of 
liquor and tobacco, practises adult baptism by im- 
mersion, and after every public sin, rechristens the 
backslider. I advised with Mahinui, whom I found 
well informed in the history of the American Mor- 
mons, and he declared against the least connection. 
“Pour mot,” said he, with a fine charity, “Jes 
Mormons ict un petit Catholiques.”’ Some months 


THE PAUMOTUS 207 


later I had an opportunity to consult an orthodox 
fellow-countryman, an old dissenting Highlander, 
long settled in Tahiti, but still breathing of the 
heather of Tiree. “ Why do they call themselves 
Mormons?” I asked. ‘ My dear, and that is my 
question!” he exclaimed. “ For by all that I can 
hear of their doctrine, I have nothing to say against 
it, and their life, it is above reproach.” And for 
all that, Mormons they are, but of the earlier 
sowing: the so-called Josephites, the followers of 
Joseph Smith, the opponents of Brigham Young. 
Grant, then, the Mormons to be Mormons. 
Fresh points at once arise: What are the Israel- 
ites? and what the Kanitus? For a long while 
back the sect had been divided into Mormons 
proper and so-called Israelites, I never could hear 
why. A few years since there came a visiting mis- 
sionary of the name of Williams, who made an 
_ excellent collection, and retired, leaving fresh dis- 
ruption imminent. Something irregular (as I was 
told) in his way of “opening the service’ had 
raised partisans and enemies; the church was once 
more rent asunder; and a new sect, the Kanitu, 
issued from the division. Since then Kanitus and 
Israelites, like the Cameronians and the United 
Presbyterians, have made common cause; and the 
ecclesiastical history of the Paumotus is, for the 
moment, uneventful. There will be more doing 
before long, and these isles bid fair to be the Scot- 
land of the South. Two things I could never learn. 
The nature of the innovations of the Rev. Mr. Wil- 
liams none would tell me, and of the meaning of 


2008 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


the name Kanitu none had a guess. It was not 
Tahitian, it was not Marquesan; it formed no part 
of that ancient speech of the Paumotus, now pass- 
ing swiftly into obsolescence. One man, a priest, 
God bless him! said it was the Latin for a little 
dog. I have found it since as the name of a god 
in New Guinea; it must be a bolder man than I 
who should hint at a connection. Here, then, is 
a singular thing: a brand-new sect, arising . by 
popular acclamation, and a nonsense word invented 
for its name. 

The design of mystery seems obvious, and ac- 
cording to a very intelligent observer, Mr. Magee 
of Mangareva, this element of the mysterious is 
a chief attraction of the Mormon Church. It 
enjoys some of the status of Freemasonry at home, 
and there is for the convert some of the exhilara- 
tion of adventure. Other attractions are certainly 
conjoined. Perpetual rebaptism, leading to a suc- 
cession of baptismal feasts, is found, both from the 
social and the spiritual side, a pleasing feature. 
More important is the fact that all the faithful enjoy 
office; perhaps more important still, the strictness 
of the discipline. “ The veto on liquor,” said Mr. 
Magee, “brings them plenty members.” There is 
no doubt these islanders are fond of drink, and 
no doubt they refrain from the indulgence; a bout 
on a feast-day, for instance, may be followed by a 
week or a month of rigorous sobriety. Mr. Wilmot 
attributes this to Paumotuan frugality and the love 
of hoarding; it goes far deeper. I have men- 
tioned that I made a feast on board the Casco. 


THE PAUMOTUS 209 


To wash down ship’s bread and jam, each guest 
was given the choice of rum or syrup, and out of 
the whole number only one man voted —in a 
defiant tone, and amid shouts of mirth — for 
“Trum ”! This was in public. .£ had the mean- 
ness to repeat the experiment, whenever I had a 
chance, within the four walls of my house; and 
three at least, who had refused at the festival, 
greedily drank rum behind a door. But there 
were others thoroughly consistent. I said the vir- 
tues of the race were bourgeois and puritan; and 
how bourgeois is this! how puritanic! how Scot- 
tish! and how Yankee! — the temptation, the re- 
sistance, the public hypocritical conformity, the 
Pharisees, the Holy Willies, and the true disciples. 
With such a people the popularity of an ascetic 
Church appears legitimate; in these strict rules, 
in this perpetual supervision, the weak find their 
advantage, the strong a certain pleasure; and the 
doctrine of rebaptism, a clean bill and a fresh start, 
will comfort many staggering professors. 

There is yet another sect, or what is called a sect 
—no doubt improperly —that of the Whistlers. 
Duncan Cameron, so clear in favour of the Mor- 
mons, was no less loud in condemnation of the 
Whistlers. Yet I do not know; [ still fancy there 
is some connection, perhaps fortuitous, probably 
disavowed. Here at least are some doings in the 
house of an Israelite clergyman (or prophet) in 
the island of Anaa, of which I am equally sure 
that Duncan would disclaim and the Whistlers hail 
them for an imitation of their own. My informant, 

14 


aToOu LNG DA ES OUT Fis aaa 


a Tahitian and a Catholic, occupied one part of 
the house; the prophet and his family lived in the 
other. Night after night the Mormons, in the 
one end, held their evening sacrifice of song; night 
after night, in the other, the wife of the Tahitian 
lay awake and listened to their singing with amaze- 
ment. At length she could contain herself no 
longer, woke her husband, and asked him what he 
heard. “I hear several persons singing hymns,” 
said he. “ Yes,” she returned, “ but listen again! 
Do you not hear something supernatural?” His 
attention thus directed, he was aware of a strange 
buzzing voice — and yet he declared it was beau- 
tiful — which justly accompanied the singers. The 
next day he made inquiries. “It is a spirit,” said 
the prophet, with entire simplicity, “ which has 
lately made a practice of joining us at family wor- 
ship.” It did not appear the thing was visible, 
and, like other spirits raised nearer home in these 
degenerate days, it was rudely ignorant, at first 
could only buzz, and had only learned of late to 
bear a part correctly in the music. 

The performances of the Whistlers are more 
businesslike. Their meetings are held publicly 
with open doors, all being “ cordially invited to 
attend.” The faithful sit about the room — ac- 
cording to one informant, singing hymns; accord- 
ing to another, now singing and now whistling; 
the leader, the wizard —let me rather say, the 
medium — sits in the midst, enveloped in a sheet ~ 
and silent; and presently, from just above his 
head, or sometimes from the midst of the roof, 


THE PAUMOTUS 211 


an aerial whistling proceeds, appalling to the inex- 
perienced. This, it appears, is the language of the 
dead: its purport is taken down progressively by 
one of the expert, writing, I was told, “as fast as 
a telegraph operator”; and the communications 
are at last made public. They are of the baldest 
triviality; a schooner is perhaps announced, some 
idle gossip reported of a neighbour, or if the spirit 
shall have been called to consultation on a case of 
sickness, a remedy may be suggested. One of 
these, immersion in scalding water, not long ago 
proved fatal to the patient. The whole business 
is very dreary, very silly, and very European: it 
has none of the picturesque qualities of similar 
conjurations in New Zealand; it seems to possess 
no kernel of possible sense, like some that I shall 
describe among the Gilbert islanders. Yet I was 
told that many hardy, intelligent natives were in- 
veterate Whistlers. ‘‘ Like Mahinui?” I asked, 
willing to have a standard; and I was told “ Yes.” 
Why should I wonder? Men more enlightened 
than my convict-catechist sit down at home to 
follies equally sterile and dull. 

The medium is sometimes female. It was a 
woman, for instance, who introduced these prac- 
tices on the north coast of Taiarapu, to the scandal 
of her own connections, her brother-in-law in par- 
ticular declaring she was drunk. But what shocked 
Tahiti might seem fit enough in the Paumotus, the 
more so as certain women there possess, by the 
gift of nature, singular and useful powers. They 
say they are honest, well-intentioned ladies, some 


ere INT AH EVS OT Hess 


of them embarrassed by their weird inheritance. 
And indeed the trouble caused by this endowment 
is so great, and the protection afforded so infini- 
tesimally small, that I hesitate whether to call it a 
gift or a hereditary curse. You may rob this lady’s 
cocoa-patch, steal her canoes, burn down her house, 
and slay her family scathless; but one thing you 
must not do: you must not lay a hand upon her 
sleeping-mat, or your belly will swell, and you can 
only be cured by the lady or her husband. Here 
is the report of an eye-witness, Tasmanian born, 
educated, a man who has made money — certainly 
no fool. In 1886 he was present in a house on 
Makatea, where two lads began to skylark on the 
mats, and were (I think) ejected. Instantly after, 
their bellies began to swell; pains took hold on 
them; all manner of island remedies were ex- 
hibited in vain, and rubbing only magnified their 
sufferings. The man of the house was called, ex- 
plained the nature of the visitation, and prepared 
the cure. A cocoa-nut was husked, filled with 
herbs, and with all the ceremonies of a launch, 
and the utterance of spells in the Paumotuan lan- 
guage, committed to the sea. From that moment 
the pains began to grow more easy and the swell- 
ing to subside. The reader may stare. I can as- 
sure him, if he moved much among old residents of 
the archipelago, he would be driven to admit one 
thing of two — either that there is something in the 
swollen bellies or nothing in the evidence of man. 
I have not met these gifted ladies; but I had an 
experience of my own, for I have played, for one 


THE PAUMOTUS 233 


night only, the part of the whistling spirit. It had 
been blowing wearily all day, but with the fall of 
night the wind abated, and the moon, which was 
then full, rolled in a clear sky. We went south- 
ward down the island on the side of the lagoon, 
walking through long-drawn forest isles of palm, 
and on a floor of snowy sand. No life was abroad, 
nor sound of life; till in the clear part of the isle 
we spied the embers of a fire, and not far off, in 
a dark house, heard natives talking softly. To sit 
without a light, even in company, and under cover, 
is for a Paumotuan a somewhat hazardous ex- 
treme. The whole scene — the strong moonlight 
and crude shadows on the sand, the scattered coals, 
the sound of the low voices from the house, and 
the lap of the lagoon along the beach — put me (I 
know not how) on thoughts of superstition. I was 
barefoot, I observed my steps were noiseless, and 
drawing near to the dark house, but keeping well 
in shadow, began to whistle. “ The Heaving of 
the Lead” was my air—no very tragic piece. 
With the first note the conversation and all move- 
ment ceased; silence accompanied me while I con- 
tinued; and when I passed that way on my return, 
I found the lamp was lighted in the house, but the 
tongues were still mute. All night, as I now think, 
the wretches shivered and were silent. For indeed, 
. Lhad no guess at the time at the nature and magni- 
tude of the terrors I inflicted, or with what grisly 
images the notes of that old song had peopled the 
dark house. 


CHAPTER V 


A PAUMOTUAN FUNERAL 


O, I had no guess of these men’s terrors. 
N Yet I had received ere that a hint, if I 
had understood; and the occasion was a 

funeral. 
A little apart in the main avenue of Rotoava, in 
a low hut of leaves that opened on a small en- 
closure, like a pigsty on a pen, an old man dwelt 
solitary with his aged wife. Perhaps they were 
too old to migrate with the others; perhaps they, 
were too poor, and had no possessions to dispute. 
At least they had remained behind; and it thus 
befell that they were invited to my feast. I dare 
say it was quite a piece of politics in the pigsty 
whether to come or not to come, and the husband 
long swithered between curiosity and age, till curi- 
osity conquered, and they came, and in the midst 
of that last merry-making death tapped him on 
the shoulder. For some days, when the sky was 
bright and the wind cool, his mat would be spread 
in the main highway of the village, and he was 
to be seen lying there inert, a mere handful of 
man, his wife inertly seated by his head. They 
seemed to have outgrown alike our needs and 


THE PAUMOTUS 215 


faculties; they neither spoke nor listened; they 
suffered us to pass without a glance; the wife 
did not fan, she seemed not to attend upon her 
husband, and the two poor antiques sat juxtaposed 
under the high canopy of palms, the human tragedy 
reduced to its bare elements, a sight beyond pathos, 
stirring a thrill of curiosity. And yet there was 
one touch of the pathetic haunted me: that so 
much youth and expectation should have run in 
these starved veins, and the man should have 
squandered all his lees of life on a pleasure party. 

On the morning of 17th September the sufferer 
died, and, time pressing, he was buried the same 
day at four. The cemetery lies to seaward behind 
Government House; broken coral, like so much 
road-metal, forms the surface; a few wooden 
crosses, a few inconsiderable upright stones, desig- 
nate graves; a mortared wall, high enough to lean 
on, rings it about; a clustering shrub surrounds 
it with pale leaves. Here was the grave dug that 
morning, doubtless by uneasy diggers, to the 
sound of the nigh sea and the cries of sea-birds; 
meanwhile the dead man waited in his house, and 
the widow and another aged woman leaned on the 
fence before the door, no speech upon their lips, 
no speculation in their eyes. 

Sharp at the hour the procession was in march, 
the coffin wrapped in white and carried by four 
bearers; mourners behind —not many, for not 
many remained in Rotoava, and not many in 
black, for these were poor; the men in straw 
hats, white coats, and blue trousers or the gor- 


a—6.IN THES OUT Hsia 


geous parti-coloured pariu, the Tahitian kilt; the 
women, with a few exceptions, brightly habited. 
Far in the rear came the widow, painfully carry- 
ing the dead man’s mat; a creature aged beyond 
humanity, to the likeness of some missing link. 

The dead man had been a Mormon; but the 
Mormon clergyman was gone with the rest to 
wrangle over boundaries in the adjacent isle, and 
a layman took his office. Standing at the head 
of the open grave, in a white coat and blue pariu, 
his Tahitian Bible in his hand and one eye bound 
with a red handkerchief, he read solemnly that 
chapter in Job which has been read and heard 
over the bones of so many of our fathers, and 
with a good voice offered up two prayers. The 
wind and the surf bore a burthen. By the ceme- 
tery gate a mother in crimson suckled an infant 
rolled in blue. In the midst the widow sat upon 
the ground and polished one of the coffin-stretchers 
with a piece of coral; a little later she had turned 
her back to the grave and was playing with a leaf. 
Did she understand? God knows. The officiant 
paused a moment, stooped, and gathered and threw 
reverently on the coffin a handful of rattling coral. 
Dust to dust: but the grains of this dust were 
gross like cherries, and the true dust that was to 
follow sat near by, still cohering (as by miracle) 
in the tragic semblance of a female ape. 

So far, Mormon or not, it was a Christian 
funeral. The well-known passage had been read 
from Job, the prayers had been rehearsed, the 
grave was filled, the mourners straggled home- 


THE PAUMOTUS 217 


ward. With a little coarser grain of covering 
earth, a little nearer outcry of the sea, a stronger 
glare of sunlight on the rude enclosure, and some 
incongruous colours of attire, the well-remembered 
form had been observed. 

By rights it should have been otherwise. The 
mat should have been buried with its owner; but, 
the family being poor, it was thriftily reserved for 
a fresh service. The widow should have flung 
herself upon the grave and raised the voice of 
official grief, the neighbours have chimed in, and 
the narrow isle rung for a space with lamentation. 
But the widow was old; perhaps she had for- 
gotten, perhaps never understood, and she played 
like a child with leaves and coffin-stretchers. In 
all ways my guest was buried with maimed rights. 
Strange to think that his last conscious pleasure 
was the Casco and my feast; strange to think that 
he had limped there, an old child, looking for some 
new good. And the good thing, rest, had been 
allotted him. 

But though the widow had neglected much, there 
was one part she must not utterly neglect. She 
came away with the dispersing funeral; but the 
dead man’s mat was left behind upon the grave, 
and I learned that by set of sun she must return 
to sleep there. This vigil is imperative. From 
sundown till the rising of the morning star the 
Paumotuan must hold his watch above the ashes 
of his kindred. Many friends, if the dead have 
been a man of mark, will keep the watchers com- 
pany; they will be well supplied with coverings 


28 IN ‘THRE SOU T Hes eas 


against the weather; I believe they bring food, 
and the rite is persevered in for two weeks, Our 
poor survivor, if, indeed, she properly survived, had 
little to cover, and few to sit with her; on the 
night of the funeral a strong squall chased her 
from her place of watch; for days the weather 
held uncertain and outrageous; and ere seven 
nights were up she had desisted, and returned to 
sleep in her low roof. That she should be at the 
pains of returning for so short a visit to a soli- 
tary house, that this borderer of the grave should 
fear a little wind and a wet blanket, filled me at 
the time with musings. I could not say she was 
indifferent; she was so far beyond me in expe- 
rience that the court of my criticism waived juris- 
diction; but I forged excuses, telling myself she 
had perhaps little to lament, perhaps suffered much, 
perhaps understood nothing. And lo! in the whole 
affair there was no question whether of tenderness 
or piety, and the sturdy return of this old remnant 
was a mark either of uncommon sense, or of un- 
common fortitude. 

Yet one thing had occurred that partly set me 
on the trail. I have said the funeral passed much 
as at home. But when‘all was over, when we were 
trooping in decent silence from the graveyard gate 
and down the path to the settlement, a sudden 
inbreak of a different spirit startled and perhaps 
dismayed us. Two people walked not far apart in 
our procession: my friend Mr. Donat — Donat- 
Rimarau, ‘Donat the much handed” — acting 
Vice-Resident, present ruler of the archipelago, by 


THE PAUMOTUS 219 


far the man of chief importance on the scene, but 
known besides for one of an unshakable good 
temper; and a certain comely, strapping young 
Paumotuan woman, the comeliest on the isle, 
not (let us hope) the bravest or the most polite. 
Of a sudden, ere yet the grave silence of the 
funeral was broken, she made a leap at the Resi- 
dent, with pointed finger, shrieked a few words, 
and fell back again with a laughter, not a natu- 
ral mirth. ‘‘ What did she say to you?” I asked. 
“She did not speak to me,” said Donat, a shade 
perturbed; “she spoke to the ghost of the dead 
man.’ And the purport of her speech was this: 
“See there! Donat will be a fine feast for you 


to-night.” 
““M. Donat called it a jest,’ I wrote at the time 
in my diary. “It seemed to me more in the na- 


ture of a terrified conjuration, as though she would 
divert the ghost’s attention from herself. A can- 
nibal race may well have cannibal phantoms.” The 
guesses of the traveller appear foredoomed to be 
erroneous; yet in these I was precisely right. The 
woman had stood by in terror at the funeral, being 
then in a dread spot, the graveyard. She looked 
on in terror to the coming night, with that ogre, a 
new spirit, loosed upon the isle. And the words 
she had cried in Donat’s face were indeed a ter- 
rified conjuration, basely to shield herself, basely 
to dedicate another in her stead. One thing is 
to be said in her excuse. Doubtless she partly 
chose Donat because he was a man of great 
good-nature, but partly, too, because he was a 


220) 00 Not AE SO; betes 


man of the half-caste. For I believe all na- 
tives regard white blood as a kind of talisman 
against the powers of hell. In no other way 
can they explain the unpunished recklessness of 
Europeans. 


CHAPTER VI 


GRAVEYARD STORIES 


‘ ), YITH my superstitious friend, the isl- 
ander, I fear I am not wholly frank, 
often leading the way with stories of 
my own, and being always a grave and sometimes 
an excited hearer. But the deceit is scarce mortal, 
since I am as pleased to hear as he to tell, as 
pleased with the story as he with the belief; and 
besides, it is entirely needful. For it is scarce 
possible to exaggerate the extent and empire of 
his superstitions; they mould his life, they colour 
his thinking; and when he does not speak to me 
of ghosts, and gods, and devils, he is playing the 
dissembler and talking only with his lips. With 
thoughts so different, one must indulge the other; 
and I would rather that I should indulge his super- 
stition than he my incredulity. Of one thing, be- 
sides, I may be sure: Let me indulge it as I please, 
I shall not hear the whole; for he is already on 
his guard with me, and the amount of the lore is 
boundless. 
I will give but a few instances at random, chiefly 
from my own doorstep in Upolu, during the past 
month (October, 1890). One of my workmen was 


9220] Nil HE S\O UT Aiegaiaes 


sent the other day to the banana patch, there to 
dig; this is a hollow of the mountain, buried in 
woods, out of all sight and cry of mankind; and 
long before dusk Lafaele was back again beside 
the cook-house with embarrassed looks; he dared 
not longer stay alone, he was afraid of “ spilits in 
the bush.” It seems these are the souls of the 
unburied dead, haunting where they fell, and wear- 
ing woodland shapes of pig, or bird, or insect; the 
bush is full of them, they seem to eat nothing, 
slay solitary wanderers apparently in spite, and at 
times, in human form, go down to villages and 
consort with the inhabitants undetected. So much 
I learned a day or so after, walking in the bush 
with a very intelligent youth, a native. It was a 
little before noon; a grey day and squally; and 
perhaps I had spoken lightly. A dark squall burst 
on the side of the mountain; the woods shook and 
cried; the dead leaves rose from the ground in 
clouds, like butterflies; and my companion came 
suddenly to a full stop. He was afraid, he said, 
of the trees falling; but as soon as I had changed 
the subject of our talk he proceeded with alacrity. 
A day or two before a messenger came up the 
mountain from Apia with a letter; I was in the 
bush, he must await my return, then wait till I 
had answered: and before I was done his voice 
sounded shrill with terror of the coming night and 
the long forest road. These are the commons. 
Take the chiefs. There has been a great coming 
and going of signs and omens in our group. One 
river ran down blood; red eels were captured in 


Dey Ey AO MO TUS 223 


another; an unknown fish was thrown upon the 
coast, an ominous word found written on its scales. 
So far we might be reading in a monkish chronicle; 
now we come on a fresh note, at once modern and 
Polynesian. The gods of Upolu and Savaii, our 
two chief islands, contended recently at cricket. 
Since then they are at war. ' Sounds of battle are 
heard to roll along the coast. A woman saw a 
man swim from the high seas and plunge direct 
into the bush; he was no man of that neighbour- 
hood; and it was known he was one of the gods, 
speeding to a council. Most perspicuous of all, a 
missionary on Savaii, who is also a medical man, 
was disturbed late in the night by knocking; it 
was no hour for the dispensary, but at length he 
woke his servant and sent him to inquire; the 
servant, looking from a window, beheld crowds of 
persons, all with grievous wounds, lopped limbs, 
broken heads, and bleeding bullet-holes; but when 
the door was opened all had disappeared. They 
were gods from the field of battle. Now these 
reports have certainly significance; it is not hard 
to trace them to political grumblers or to read in 
them a threat of coming trouble; from that merely 
human side I found them ominous myself. But 
it was the spiritual side of their significance that 
was discussed in secret council by my rulers. | 
shall best depict this mingled habit of the Poly- 
nesian mind by two connected instances. I once 
lived in a village, the name of which I do not 
mean to tell. The chief and his sister were per- 
sons perfectly intelligent: gentlefolk, apt of speech. 


994. IN “DAE (SOOT Wie Sass 


The sister was very religious, a great church-goer, 
one that used to reprove me if I stayed away; I 
found afterwards that she privately worshipped a 
shark. The chief himself was somewhat of a free- 
thinker; at the least, a latitudinarian: he was a 
man, besides, filled with European knowledge and 
accomplishments; of an impassive, ironical habit; 
and I should as soon have expected superstition 
in Mr. Herbert Spencer. Hear the sequel. I had 
discovered by unmistakable signs that they buried 
too shallow in the village graveyard, and I took 
my friend, as the responsible authority, to task. 
“There is something wrong about your grave- 
yard,” said I, “which you must attend to, or it 
may have very bad results.” ‘“‘ Something wrong? 
What is it?” he asked, with an emotion that sur- 
prised me. “If you care to go along there any 
evening about nine o’clock you can see for your- 
self,’ said I. He stepped backward. “A ghost!” 
he cried. 

In short, in the whole field of the South Seas, 
there is not one to blame another. Half blood and 
whole, pious and debauched, intelligent and dull, 
all men believe in ghosts, all men combine with 
their recent Christianity fear of and a lingering 
faith in the old island deities. So, in Europe, the 
gods of Olympus slowly dwindled into village 
bogies; so to-day, the theological Highlander 
sneaks from under the eye of the Free Church 
divine to lay an offering by a sacred well. 

I try to deal with the whole matter here because 
of a particular quality in Paumotuan superstitions. 


THE PAUMOTUS a2. 


Tt is true I heard them told by a man with a genius 
for such narrations. Close about our evening lamp, 
within sound of the island surf, we hung on his 
words, thrilling. The reader, in far other scenes, 
must listen close for the faint echo. 

This bundle of weird stories sprang from the 
burial and the woman’s selfish conjuration. I was 
dissatisfied with what I heard, harped upon ques- 
tions, and struck at last this vein of metal. It is 
from sundown to about four in the morning that 
the kinsfolk camp upon the grave; and these are 
the hours of the spirits’ wanderings. At any time 
of the night —it may be earlier, it may be later 
— a sound is to be heard below, which is the noise 
of his liberation; at four sharp, another and a 
louder marks the instant of the re-imprisonment ; 
between-whiles, he goes his malignant rounds. 
“ Did you ever see an evil spirit? ’’ was once asked 
of a Paumotuan. ‘“ Once.” “ Under what form? ”’ 
“It was in the form of a crane.” “ And how did 
you know that crane to be a spirit?’’ was asked. 
“T will tell you,” he answered; and this was the 
purport of his inconclusive narrative. His father 
had been dead nearly a fortnight; others had 
wearied of the watch; and as the sun was setting, 
he found himself by the grave alone. It was not 
yet dark, rather the hour of the afterglow, when 
he was aware of a snow-white crane upon the coral 
mound; presently more cranes came, some white, 
some black; then the cranes vanished, and he saw 
in their place a white cat, to which there was 
silently joined a great company of cats of every 

15 


296) (DN THE (SOD Ehoae aaa 


hue conceivable; then these also disappeared, and 
he was left astonished. 

This was an anodyne appearance. Take instead 
the experience of Rua-a-mariterangi on the isle of 
Katiu. He had a need for some pandanus, and 
crossed the isle to the sea-beach, where it chiefly 
flourishes. The day was still, and Rua was sur- 
prised to hear a crashing sound among the thickets, 
and then the fall of a considerable tree. Here 
must be some one building a canoe; and he entered 
the margin of the wood to find and pass the time 
of day with this chance neighbour. The crashing 
sounded more at hand; and then he was aware of 
something drawing swiftly near among the tree- 
tops. It swung by its heels downward, like an 
ape, so that its hands were free for murder; it 
depended safely by the slightest twigs; the speed 
of its coming was incredible; and soon Rua recog- 
nised it for a corpse, horrible with age, its bowels 
hanging as it came. Prayer was the weapon of 
Christian in the Valley of the Shadow, and it 
is to prayer that Rua-a-mariterangi attributes his 
escape. No merely human expedition had availed. 

This demon was plainly from the grave; yet 
you will observe he was abroad by day. And in- 
consistent as it may seem with the hours of the 
night watch and the many references to the rising 
of the morning star, it is no singular exception. 
I could never find a case of another who had seen 
this ghost, diurnal and arboreal in its habits; but 
others have heard the fall of the tree, which seems 
the signal of its coming. Mr. Donat was once 


THE PAUMOTUS 227 


pearling on the uninhabited isle of Haraiki. It 
was a day without a breath of wind, such as alter- 
nate in the archipelago with days of contumelious 
breezes. The divers were in the midst of the lagoon 
upon their employment; the cook, a boy of ten, 
was over his pots in the camp. Thus were all 
souls accounted for except a single native who 
accompanied Donat into the woods in quest of sea- 
fowls’ eggs. In a moment, out of the stillness, 
came the sound of the fall of a great tree. Donat 
would have passed on to find the cause. “ No,” 
cried his companion, ‘that was no tree. It was 
something not right. Let us go back to camp.” 
Next Sunday the divers were turned on, all that 
part of the isle was thoroughly examined, and sure 
enough no tree had fallen. A little later Mr. Donat 
saw one of his divers flee from a similar sound, in 
similar unaffected panic, on the same isle. But 
neither would explain, and it was not till after- 
wards, when he met with Rua, that he learned the 
occasion of their terrors. 

But whether by day or night, the purpose of the 
dead in these abhorred activities is still the same. 
In Samoa, my informant had no idea of the food 
of the bush spirits; no such ambiguity would exist 
in the mind of a Paumotuan. In that hungry 
archipelago, living and dead must alike toil for 
nutriment; and the race having been cannibal in 
the past, the spirits are so still. When the living 
ate the dead, horrified nocturnal imagination drew 
the shocking inference that the dead might eat the 
living. Doubtless they slay men, doubtless even 


228)° IN TH Es: OUT Hsia 


mutilate them, in mere malice. Marquesan spirits 
sometimes tear out the eyes of travellers; but even 
that may be more practical than appears, for the 
eye is a cannibal dainty. And certainly the root- 
idea of the dead, at least in the far Eastern islands, 
is to prowl for food. It was as a dainty morsel for 
a meal that the woman denounced Donat at the 
funeral. There are spirits besides who prey in 
particular not on the bodies but on the souls of 
the dead. The point is clearly made in a Tahitian 
story. A child fell sick, grew swiftly worse, and at 
last showed signs of death. The mother hastened 
to the house of a sorcerer, who lived hard by. 
“You are yet in time,” said he; “a spirit has just 
run past my door carrying the soul of your child 
wrapped in the leaf of a purao; but I have a 
spirit stronger and swifter who will run him down 
ere he has time to eat it.” Wrapped in a leaf: 
like other things edible and corruptible. 

Or take an experience of Mr. Donat’s on the 
island of Anaa. It was a night of a high wind, 
with violent squalls; his child was very sick, and 
the father, though he had gone to bed, lay wake- 
ful, hearkening to the gale. All at once a fowl was 
violently dashed on the house wall. Supposing he 
had forgot to put it in shelter with the rest, Donat 
arose, found a bird (a cock) lying on the ve- 
randa, and put it in the hen-house, the door of 
which he securely fastened. Fifteen minutes later 
the business was repeated, only this time, as it 
was being dashed against the wall, the bird crew. 
Again Donat replaced it, examining the hen-house 


THE PAUMOTUS 229 


thoroughly and finding it quite perfect; as he was 
so engaged the wind puffed out his light, and he 
must grope back to the door a good deal shaken. 
Yet a third time the bird was dashed upon the wall; 
a third time Donat set it, now near dead, beside 
its mates; and he was scarce returned before there 
came a rush, like that of a furious strong man, 
against the door, and a whistle as loud as that 
of a railway engine rang about the house. The 
sceptical reader may here detect the finger of the 
tempest; but the women gave up all for lost 
and clustered on the beds lamenting. Nothing 
followed, and I must suppose the gale somewhat 
abated, for presently after a chief came visiting. 
He was a bold man to be abroad so late, but 
doubtless carried a bright lantern. And he was 
certainly a man of counsel, for as soon as he heard 
the details of these disturbances he was in a posi- 
tion to explain their nature. ‘“‘ Your child,” said 
he, ‘‘ must certainly die. This is the evil spirit of 
our island who lies in wait to eat the spirits of the 
newly dead.”’ And then he went on to expatiate 
on the strangeness of the spirit’s conduct. He was 
not usually, he explained, so open of assault, but 
sat silent on the house-top waiting, in the guise of 
a bird, while within the people tended the dying 
and bewailed the dead, and had no thought of 
peril. But when the day came and the doors were 
opened and men began to go abroad, blood-stains 
on the wall betrayed the tragedy. 

This is the quality I admire in Paumotuan 
legend. In Tahiti the spirit-eater is said to assume 


g90°). UN At B'S OVW oD Res 


a vesture which has much more of pomp, but how 
much less of horror. It has been seen by all sorts 
and conditions, native and foreign; only the last 
insist it is a meteor. My authority was not so 
sure. He was riding with his wife about two in 
the morning; both were near asleep, and the horses 
‘not much better. It was a brilliant and still night, 
and the road wound over a mountain, near by 
a deserted marae (old Tahitian temple). All at 
once the appearance passed above them: a form 
of light; the head round and greenish; the body 
long, red, and with a focus of yet redder brilliancy 
about the midst. A buzzing hoot accompanied its 
passage; it flew direct out of one marae, and direct 
for another down the mountain side. And this, 
as my informant argued, is suggestive. For why 
should a mere meteor frequent the altars of abom- 
inable gods? The horses, I should say, were 
equally dismayed with their riders. Now I am 
not dismayed at all—not even agreeably. Give 
me rather the bird upon the house-top and the 
morning blood-gouts on the wall. 

But the dead are not exclusive in their diet. 
They carry with them to the grave, in particular, 
the Polynesian taste for fish, and enter at times 
with the living into a partnership in fishery. Rua- 
a-mariterangi is again my authority; I feel it 
diminishes the credit of the fact, but how it builds 
up the image of this inveterate ghost-seer! He 
belongs to the miserably poor island of Taenga, 
yet his father’s house was always well supplied. 
As Rua grew up he was called at last to go a-fishing 


THE PAUMOTUS _ 231 


with this fortunate parent. They rowed into the 
lagoon at dusk, to an unlikely place, and the boy 
lay down in the stern, and the father began vainly 
to cast his line over the bows. It is to be supposed 
that Rua slept; and when he awoke there was the 
figure of another beside his father, and his father 
was pulling in the fish hand over hand. “ Who is 
that man, father?”’ Rua asked. “It is none of 
your business,” said the father; and Rua supposed 
the stranger had swum off to them from shore. 
Night after night they fared into the lagoon, often 
to the most unlikely places; night after night the 
stranger would suddenly be seen on board, and as 
suddenly be missed; and morning after morning 
the canoe returned laden with fish. “ My father is 
a very lucky man,” thought Rua. At last, one fine 
day, there came first one boat party and then an- 
other, who must be entertained; father and son 
put off later than usual into the lagoon; and be- 
fore the canoe was landed it was four o’clock, and 
the morning star was close on the horizon. Then 
the stranger appeared seized with some distress; 
turned about, showing for the first time his face, 
which was that of one long dead, with shining eyes; 
stared into the east, set the tips of his fingers to 
his mouth like one a-cold, uttered a strange, shud- 
dering sound between a whistle and a moan —a 
thing to freeze the blood; and, the day-star just 
rising from the sea, he suddenly was not. Then 
Rua understood why his father prospered, why 
his fishes rotted early in the day, and why some 
were always carried to the cemetery and laid upon 


232, \IN® THE (SO OD Higa es 


the graves. My informant is a man not certainly 
averse to superstition, but he keeps his head, and 
takes a certain superior interest, which I may be 
allowed to call scientific. The last point reminding 
him of some parallel practice in Tahiti, he asked 
Rua if the fish were left, or carried home again 
after a formal dedication. It appears old Mari- 
terangi practised both methods; sometimes treating 
his shadowy partner to a mere oblation, sometimes 
honestly leaving his fish to rot upon the grave. 

It is plain we have in Europe stories of a similar 
complexion; and the Polynesian varua ino or aitu 
o le vao is clearly the near kinsman of the Tran- 
sylvanian vampire. Here is a tale in which the 
kinship appears broadly marked. On the atoll of 
Penrhyn, then still partly savage, a certain chief 
was long the salutary terror of the natives. He 
died, he was buried; and his late neighbours had 
scarce tasted the delights of licence ere his ghost 
appeared about the village. Fear seized upon all; 
a council was held of the chief men and sorcerers; 
and with the approval of the Rarotongan mis- 
sionary, who was as frightened as the rest, and in 
the presence of several whites— my friend Mr. 
Ben Hird being one — the grave was opened, deep- 
ened until water came, and the body re-interred 
face down. The still recent staking of suicides in 
England and the decapitation of vampires in the 
east of Europe form close parallels. 

So in Samoa only the spirits of the unburied 
awake fear. During the late war many fell in 
the bush; their bodies, sometimes headless, were 


THE PAUMOTUS 233 


brought back by native pastors and interred; but 
this (I know not why) was insufficient, and the 
spirit still lingered on the theatre of death. When 
peace returned a singular scene was enacted in many 
places, and chiefly round the high gorges of Loto- 
anuu, where the struggle was long centred and 
the loss had been severe. Kinswomen of the dead 
came carrying a mat or sheet and guided by sur- 
vivors of the fight. The place of death was ear- 
nestly sought out; the sheet was spread upon the 
ground; and the women, moved with pious anxiety, 
sat about and watched it. If any living thing 
alighted it was twice brushed away; upon the third 
coming it was known to be the spirit of the dead, 
was folded in, carried home and buried beside the 
body; and the aitu rested. The rite was practised 
beyond doubt in simple piety; the repose of the 
soul was its object: its motive, reverent affection. 
The present king disowns indeed all knowledge 
of a dangerous aitu; he declares the souls of the 
unburied were only wanderers in limbo, lacking 
an entrance to the proper country of the dead, 
unhappy, nowise hurtful. And this severely classic 
opinion doubtless represents the views of the en- 
lightened. But the flight of my Lafaele marks the 
grosser terrors of the ignorant. 

This belief in the exorcising efficacy of funeral 
rites perhaps explains a fact, otherwise amazing, 
that no Polynesian seems at all to share our Euro- 
pean horror of human bones and mummies. Of 
the first they made their cherished ornaments; they 
preserved them in houses or in mortuary caves; 


234 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


and the watchers of royal sepulchres dwelt with 
their children among the bones of generations. The 
mummy, even in the making, was as little feared. 
In the Marquesas, on the extreme east, it was made 
by the household with continual unction and ex- 
posure to the sun; in the Carolines, upon the 
farthest west, it is still cured in the smoke of the 
family hearth. Head-hunting, besides, still lives 
around my doorstep in Samoa. And not ten 
years ago, in the Gilberts, the widow must disinter, 
cleanse, polish, and thenceforth carry about her, 
by day and night, the head of her dead husband. 
In all these cases we may suppose the process, 
whether of cleansing or drying, to have fully 
exorcised the aitu. 

But the Paumotuan belief is more obscure. Here 
the man is duly buried, and he has to be watched. 
He is duly watched, and the spirit goes abroad in 
spite of watches. Indeed, it is not the purpose of 
the vigils to prevent these wanderings; only to 
mollify by polite attention the inveterate malignity 
of the dead. Neglect (it is supposed) may irritate 
and thus invite his visits, and the aged and weakly 
sometimes balance risks and stay at home. Ob- 
serve, it is the dead man’s kindred and next friends 
who thus deprecate his fury with nocturnal watch- 
ings. Even the placatory vigil is held perilous, 
except in company, and a boy was pointed out to 
me in Rotoava, because he had watched alone by 
his own father. Not the ties of the dead, nor yet 
their proved character, affect the issue. A late 
Resident, who died in Fakarava of sunstroke, was 


THE PAUMOTUS a3 


beloved in life, and is still remembered with affec- 
tion; none the less his spirit went about the island 
clothed with terrors, and the neighbourhood of 
Government House was still avoided after dark. 
We may sum up the cheerful doctrine thus: All 
men become vampires, and the vampire spares none. 
And here we come face to face with a tempting 
inconsistency. For the whistling spirits are noto- 
riously clannish; I understood them to wait upon 
and to enlighten kinsfolk only, and that the me- 
dium was always of the race of the communicating 
spirit. Here, then, we have the bonds of the family, 
on the one hand, severed at the hour of death; on 
the other, helpfully persisting. 

The child’s soul in the Tahitian tale was wrapped 
in leaves. It is the spirits of the newly dead that 
are the dainty. When they are slain, the house is 
stained with blood. Rua’s dead fisherman was de- 
composed; so—and horribly — was his arboreal 
demon. The spirit, then, is a thing material; and 
it is by the material ensigns of corruption that he 
is distinguished from the living man. This opinion 
is widespread, adds a gross terror to the more ugly 
Polynesian tales, and sometimes defaces the more 
engaging with a painful and incongruous touch. 
I will give two examples sufficiently wide apart, 
one from Tahiti, one from Samoa. 

And first from Tahiti. A man went to visit the 
husband of his sister, then some time dead. In 
her life the sister had been dainty in the island 
fashion, and went always adorned with a coronet 
of flowers. In the midst of the night the brother 


236 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


awoke and was aware of a heavenly fragrance 
going to and fro in the dark house. ‘The lamp 
I must suppose to have burned out; no Tahi- 
tian would have lain down without one lighted. 
Awhile he lay wondering and delighted; then called 
upon the rest. “ Do none of you smell flowers?” 
he asked. “O,” said his brother-in-law, ‘‘ we are 
used to that here.” The next morning these two 
men went walking, and the widower confessed that 
his dead wife came about the house continually, 
and that he had even seen her. She was shaped 
and dressed and crowned with flowers as in her 
lifetime; only she moved a few inches above the 
earth with a very easy progress, and flitted dry- 
shod above the surface of the river. And now 
comes my point: It was always in a back view 
that she appeared; and these brothers-in-law, de- 
bating the affair, agreed that this was to conceal 
the inroads of corruption. 

Now for the Samoan story. I owe it to the 
kindness of Dr. F. Otto Sierich, whose collection 
of folk-tales I expect with a high degree of in- 
terest. A man in Manu’a was married to two 
wives and had no issue. He went to Savaii, mar- 
ried there a third, and was more fortunate. When 
his wife was near her time he remembered he was 
in a strange island, like a poor man; and when his 
child was born he must be shamed for lack of gifts. 
It was in vain his wife dissuaded him. He re- 
turned to his father in Manu’a seeking help; and 
with what he could get he set off in the night to 
re-embark. Now his wives heard of his coming; 


PRE PAUMOTUS 237 


they were incensed he did not stay to visit them; 
and on the beach, by his canoe, intercepted and 
slew him. Now the third wife lay asleep in Savaii; 
her babe was born and slept by her side; and she 
was awakened by the spirit of her husband. “ Get 
up,’ he said, “my father is sick in Manu’a and 
we must go to visit him.” ‘It is well,’ said she; 
“take you the child, while I carry its mats.” “TI 
cannot carry the child,” said the spirit; “I am too 
cold from the sea.” When they were got on board 
the canoe the wife smelt carrion. ‘ How is this?” 
she said. “‘ Whatehave you in the canoe that I 
should smell carrion?” “It is nothing in the 
canoe,” said the spirit. “It is the land-wind blow- 
ing down the mountains, where some beast lies 
dead.” It appears it was still night when they 
reached Manu’a — the swiftest passage on record 
— and as they entered the reef the bale-fires burned 
in the village. Again she asked him to carry the 
child; but now he need no more dissemble. “I 
cannot carry your child,” said he, “ for I am dead, 
and the fires you see are burning for my funeral.”’ 

The curious may learn in Dr. Sierich’s book the 
unexpected sequel of the tale. Here is enough for 
my purpose. Though the man was but new dead, 
the ghost was already putrefied, as though putre- 
faction were the mark and of the essence of a 
spirit. The vigil on the Paumotuan grave does 
not extend beyond two weeks, and they told me 
this period was thought to coincide with that of 
the resolution of the body. The ghost always 
marked with decay—the danger seemingly end- 


238 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


ing with the process of dissolution — here is tempt- 
ing matter for the theorist. But it will not do. 
The lady of the flowers had been long dead, and 
her spirit was still supposed to bear the brand of 
perishability. The Resident had been more than 
a fortnight buried, and his vampire was still sup- 
posed to go the rounds. 

Of the lost state of the dead, from the lurid 
Mangaian legend, in which infernal deities hocus 
and destroy the souls of all, to the various sub- 
marine and aerial limbos where the dead feast, 
float idle, or resume the occupations of their life 
on earth, it would be wearisome to tell. One story 
I give, for it is singular in itself, is well known 
in Tahiti, and has this of interest, that it is post- 
Christian, dating indeed from but a few years 
back. A princess of the reigning house died; was 
transported to the neighbouring isle of Raiatea; 
fell there under the empire of a spirit who con- 
demned her to climb cocoa-palms all day and bring 
him the nuts; was found after some time in this 
miserable servitude by a second spirit, one of her 
own house; and by him, upon her lamentations, 
reconveyed to Tahiti, where she found her body 
still waked, but already swollen with the approaches 
of corruption. It is a lively point in the tale that, 
on the sight of this dishonoured tabernacle, the 
princess prayed she might continue to be num- 
bered with the dead. But it seems it was too late, 
her spirit was replaced by the least dignified of 
entrances, and her startled family beheld the body 
move. The seemingly purgatorial labours, the 


THE PAUMOTUS 239 


helpful kindred spirit, and the horror of the princess 
at the sight of her tainted body, are all points to 
be remarked. 

The truth is, the tales are not necessarily con- 
sistent in themselves; and they are further dark- 
ened for the stranger by an ambiguity of language. 
Ghosts, vampires, spirits, and gods are all con- 
founded. And yet I seem to perceive that (with 
exceptions) those whom we would count gods 
were less maleficent. Permanent spirits haunt and 
do murder in corners of Samoa; but those legiti- 
mate gods of Upolu and Savaii, whose wars and 
cricketings of late convulsed society, I did not 
gather to be dreaded, or not with a like fear. 
The spirit of Anaa that ate souls is certainly a 
fearsome inmate; but the high gods, even of the 
archipelago, seem helpful. Mahinui — from whom 
our convict-catechist had been named — the spirit 
of the sea, like a Proteus endowed with endless 
avatars, came to the assistance of the shipwrecked 
and carried them ashore in the guise of a ray-fish. 
The same divinity bore priests from isle to isle 
about the archipelago, and by his aid, within the 
century, persons have been seen to fly. The tute- 
lar deity of each isle is likewise helpful, and by 
a particular form of wedge-shaped cloud on the 
horizon announces the coming of a ship. 

To one who conceives of these atolls, so narrow, 
so barren, so beset with sea, here would seem a su- 
perfluity of ghostly denizens. And yet there are 
more. In the various brackish pools and ponds, 
beautiful women with long red hair are seen to rise 


20 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


and bathe; only (timid as mice) on the first sound 
of feet upon the coral they dive again for ever. 
They are known to be healthy and harmless living 
people, dwellers of an underworld; and the same 
fancy is current in Tahiti, where also they have the 
-hair red. Tetea is the Tahitian name; the Paumo- 
tuan, Mokurea. 


PART III: THE GILBERTS 





PART III: THE GILBERTS 


CHAPTER I 


BUTARITARI 


) T Honolulu we had said farewell to the Casco 
A and to Captain Otis, and our next adven- 

ture was made in changed conditions. 
Passage was taken for myself, my wife, Mr. Os- 
bourne, and my China boy, Ah Fu, on a pigmy, 
trading-schooner, the Equator, Captain Dennis 
Reid; and on a certain bright June day in 1889, 
adorned in the Hawaiian fashion with the gar- 
lands of departure, we drew out of port and bore 
with a fair wind for Micronesia. 

The whole extent of the South Seas is desert of 
ships; more especially that part where we were now 
to sail. No post runs in these islands; communica- 
tion is by accident; where you may have designed 
to go is one thing, where you shall be able to ar- 
rive another. It was my hope, for instance, to have 
reached the Carolines, and returned to the light 
of day by way of Manila and the China ports; 
and it was in Samoa that we were destined to re- 
appear and be once more refreshed with the sight of 
mountains. Since the sunset faded from the peaks 


244 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


of Oahu six months had intervened, and we had 
seen no spot of earth so high as an ordinary cot- 
tage. Our path had been still on the flat sea, our 
dwellings upon unerected coral, our diet from the 
pickle-tub or out of tins; I had learned to welcome 
shark’s flesh for a variety; and a mountain, an 
onion, an Irish potato or a beefsteak, had been 
long lost to sense and dear to aspiration. 

The two chief places of our stay, Butaritari and 
Apemama, lie near the line; the latter within 
thirty miles. Both enjoy a superb ocean climate, 
days of blinding sun and bracing wind, nights of 
a heavenly brightness. Both are somewhat wider 
than Fakarava, measuring perhaps (at the widest) 
a quarter of a mile from beach to beach. In both, 
a coarse kind of taro thrives; its culture is a chief 
business of the natives, and the consequent mounds 
and ditches make miniature scenery and amuse the 
eye. In all else they show the customary features 
of an atoll; the low horizon, the expanse of the 
lagoon, the sedge-like rim of palm-tops, the same- 
ness and smallness of the land, the hugely superior 
size and interest of sea and sky. Life on such isl- 
ands is in many points like life on shipboard. The 
atoll, like the ship, is soon taken for granted; and 
the islanders, like the ship’s crew, become soon the 
centre of attention. The isles are populous, inde- 
pendent, seats of kinglets, recently civilised, little 
visited. In the last decade many changes have 
crept in; women no longer go unclothed till 
marriage; the widow no longer sleeps at night 
and goes abroad by day with the skull of her 


THE GILBERTS 245 


dead husband; and, fire-arms being introduced, 
the spear and the shark-tooth sword are sold for 
curiosities. Ten years ago all these things and 
practices were to be seen in use; yet ten 
years more, and the old society will have en- 
tirely vanished. We came in a happy moment 
to see its institutions still erect and (in Ape- 
mama) scarce decayed. 

Populous and independent — warrens of men, 
ruled over with some rustic pomp — such was the 
first and still the recurring impression of these tiny 
lands. As we stood across the lagoon for the town 
of Butaritari, a stretch of the low shore was seen 
to be crowded with the brown roofs of houses; 
those of the palace and king’s summer parlour 
(which are of corrugated iron) glittered near one 
end conspicuously bright; the royal colours flew 
hard by on a tall flagstaff; in front, on an artificial 
islet, the gaol played the part of a martello. Even 
upon this first and distant view, the place had 
scarce the air of what it truly was, a village; rather 
of that which it was also, a petty metropolis, a city 
rustic and yet royal. 

The lagoon is shoal. The tide being out, we 
waded for some quarter of a mile in tepid shallows, 
and stepped ashore at last into a flagrant stag- 
nancy of sun and heat. The lee side of a line island 
after noon is indeed a breathless place; on the 
ocean beach the trade will be still blowing, bois- 
terous and cool; out in the lagoon it will be 
blowing also, speeding the canoes; but the screen 
of bush completely intercepts it from the shore, and 


246 IN THE(SOUTAVSEiwas 


sleep and silence and ‘companies of mosquitos brood 
upon the towns. 

We may thus be said to have taken Butaritari 
by surprise. A few inhabitants were still abroad 
in the north end, at which we landed. As we 
advanced, we were soon done with encounter, and 
seemed to explore a city of the dead. Only, be- 
tween the posts of open houses, we could see the 
townsfolk stretched in the siesta, sometimes a 
family together veiled in a mosquito net, sometimes 
a single sleeper on a platform like a corpse on a 
bier. 

The houses were of all dimensions, from those of 
toys to those of churches. Some might hold a 
battalion, some were so minute they could scarce 
receive a pair of lovers; only in the playroom, when 
the toys are mingled, do we meet such incongrui- 
ties of scale. Many were open sheds; some took 
the form of roofed stages; others were walled and 
the walls pierced with little windows. A few were 
perched on piles in the lagoon; the rest stood at 
random on a green, through which the roadway 
made a ribbon of sand, or along the embankments 
of a sheet of water like a shallow dock. One and 
all were the creatures of a single tree; palm-tree 
wood and palm-tree leaf their materials; no nail 
had been driven, no hammer sounded, in their 
building, and they were held together by lashings 
of palm-tree sinnet. 

In the midst of the thoroughfare, the church 
stands like an island, a lofty and dim house with 
rows of windows; a rich tracery of framing sus- 


THE GILBERTS 247 


tains the roof; and through the door at either end 
the street shows in a vista. The proportions of the 
place, in such surroundings, and built of such mate- 
tials, appeared august; and we threaded the nave 
with a sentiment befitting visitors in a cathedral. 
Benches run along either side. In the midst, on a 
crazy dais, two chairs stand ready for the king and 
queen when they shall choose to worship; over 
their heads a hoop, apparently from a hogshead, 
depends by a strip of red cotton; and the hoop 
(which hangs askew) is dressed with streamers 
of the same material, red and white. 

This was our first advertisement of the royal 
dignity, and presently we stood before its seat and 
centre. The palace is built of imported wood upon 
a European plan; the roof of corrugated iron, the 
yard enclosed with walls, the gate surmounted by a 
sort of lych-house. It cannot be called spacious; a 
labourer in the States is sometimes more commo- 
diously lodged; but when we had the chance to see 

| it within, we found it was enriched (beyond all 
_ island expectation) with coloured advertisements 
| and cuts from the illustrated papers. Even before 
_ the gate some of the treasures of the crown stand 
| public: a bell of 2 good magnitude, two pieces 
of cannon, and a single shell. The bell cannot be 
rung nor the guns fired; they are curiosities, 
proofs of wealth, a part of the parade of the royalty, 
and stand to be admired like statues in a square. A 
Straight gut of water like a canal runs almost to 
the palace door; the containing quay-walls excel- 

_ tently built of coral; over against the mouth, by 





248 “INTHE SOU TH Sias 


what seems an effect of landscape art, the martello- 
like islet of the gaol breaks the lagoon. Vassal 
chiefs with tribute, neighbour monarchs come 
a-roving, might here sail in, view with surprise 
these extensive public works, and be awed by these 
mouths of silent cannon. It was impossible to see 
the place and not to fancy it designed for pageantry. 
But the elaborate theatre then stood empty; the 
royal house deserted, its doors and windows gap- 
ing; the whole quarter of the town immersed in 
silence. On the opposite bank of the canal, on a 
roofed stage, an ancient gentleman slept publicly, 
sole visible inhabitant; and beyond on the lagoon 
a canoe spread a striped lateen, the sole thing 
moving. 

The canal is formed on the south by a pier or 
causeway with a parapet. At the far end the par- 
apet stops, and the quay expands into an oblong 
peninsula in the lagoon, the breathing-place and 
summer parlour of the king. The midst is occu- 
pied by an open house or permanent marquee — 
called here a maniapa, or, as the word is now pro- 
nounced, a maniap’ — at the lowest estimation forty. 
feet by sixty. The iron roof, lofty but exceed- 
ingly low-browed, so that a woman must stoop 
to enter, is supported externally on pillars of coral, 
within by a frame of wood. The floor is of broken 
coral, divided in aisles by the uprights of the frame; 
the house far enough from shore to catch the breeze, 
which enters freely and disperses the mosquitos; 
and under the low eaves the sun is seen to glitter 
and the waves to dance on the lagoon. 


THE GILBERTS 249 


It was.now some while since we had met any but 
slumberers; and when we had wandered down the 
pier and stumbled at last into this bright shed, we 
were surprised to find it occupied by a society of 
wakeful people, some twenty souls in all, the court 
and guardsmen of Butaritari. The court ladies 
were busy making mats; the guardsmen yawned 
and sprawled. Half-a-dozen rifles lay on a rock 
and a cutlass was leaned against a pillar: the ar- 
moury of these drowsy musketeers. At the far 
end, a little closed house of wood displayed some 
tinsel curtains, and proved, upon examination, to 
be a privy on the European model. In front of 
this, upon some mats, lolled Tebureimoa, the king; 
behind him, on the panels of the house, two crossed 
rifles represented fasces. He wore pajamas which 
sorrowfully misbecame his bulk; his nose was 
hooked and cruel, his body overcome with sodden 
corpulence, his eye timorous and dull; he seemed 
at once oppressed with drowsiness and held awake 
by apprehension: a pepper rajah muddled with 
opium, and listening for the march of a Dutch 
army, looks perhaps not otherwise. We were to 
grow better acquainted, and first and last I had 
the same impression; he seemed always drowsy, 
yet always to hearken and start; and, whether from 
remorse or fear, there is no doubt he seeks a refuge 
in the abuse of drugs. 

The rajah displayed no sign of interest in our 
coming. But the queen, who sat beside him in a 
purple sacque, was more accessible; and there was 
present an interpreter so willing that his volubility 


arg TN TH EY S O16 tT Eis 


became at last the cause of our departure. He had 
greeted us upon our entrance: — “ That is the hon- 
ourable King, and I am his interpreter,’ he had 
said, with more stateliness than truth. For he held 
no appointment in the court, seemed extremely ill- 
acquainted with the island language, and was pres- 
ent, like ourselves, upon a visit of civility. Mr. 
Williams was his name: an American darkey, run- 
away ship’s cook, and bar-keeper at The Land we 
Live in tavern, Butaritari. I never knew a man 
who had more words in his command or less truth 
to communicate; neither the gloom of the monarch, 
nor my own efforts to be distant, could in the least 
abash him; and when the scene closed, the darkey 
was left talking. 

The town still slumbered, or had but just begun 
to turn and stretch itself; it was still plunged in 
heat and silence. So much the more vivid was the 
impression that we carried away of the house upon 
the islet, the Micronesian Saul wakeful amid his 
guards, and his unmelodious David, Mr. Williams, 
chattering through the drowsy hours. 


CHAPTER II 


THE FOUR BROTHERS 


7 AHE kingdom of Tebureimoa includes two 
islands, Great and Little Makin; some 
two thousand subjects pay him tribute, 

and two semi-independent chieftains do him quali- 
fied homage. The importance of the office is meas- 
ured by the man; he may be a nobody, he may be 
absolute; and both extremes have been exemplified 
within the memory of residents. 

On the death of King Tetimararoa, Teburei- 
moa’s father, Nakaeia, the eldest son, succeeded. 
He was a fellow of huge physical strength, master- 
ful, violent, with a certain barbaric thrift and some 
intelligence of men and business. Alone in his 
islands, it was he who dealt and profited; he was 
the planter and the merchant; and his subjects 
toiled for his behoof in servitude. When they 
wrought long and well their taskmaker declared a 
holiday, and supplied and shared a general debauch. 
The scale of his providing was at times magnifi- 
cent; six hundred dollars’ worth of gin and brandy 
was set forth at once; the narrow land resounded 
with the noise of revelry; and it was a common 
thing to see the subjects (staggering themselves) 


a2 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


parade their drunken sovereign on the forehatch of 
a wrecked vessel, king and commons howling and 
singing as they went. At a word from Nakaeia’s 
mouth the revel ended; Makin became once more 
an isle of slaves and of teetotalers; and on the mor- 
row all the population must be on the roads or in 
the taro-patches toiling under his bloodshot eye. 
The fear of Nakaeia filled the land. No regu- . 
larity of justice was affected; there was no trial, 
there were no officers of the law; it seems there 
was but one penalty, the capital; and daylight 
assault and midnight murder were the forms of 
process. The king himself would play the execu- 
tioner; and his blows were dealt by stealth, and 
with the help and countenance of none but his 
own wives. These were his oarswomen; one that 
caught a crab, he slew incontinently with the tiller ; 
thus disciplined, they pulled him by night to the 
scene of his vengeance, which he would then exe- 
cute alone and return well pleased with his con- 
nubial crew. The inmates of the harem held a 
station hard for us to conceive. Beasts of draught, 
and driven by the fear of death, they were yet im- 
plicitly trusted with their sovereign’s life; they 
were still wives and queens, and it was supposed 
that no man should behold their faces. They killed 
by the sight like basilisks; a chance view of one of 
those boatwomen was a crime to be wiped out with 
blood. In the days of Nakaeia the palace was beset 
with some tall cocoa-palms which commanded 
the enclosure. It chanced one evening, while 
Nakaeia sat below at supper with his wives, that 


THE GILBERTS 253 


the owner of the grove was in a tree-top drawing 
palm-tree wine; it chanced that he looked down, 
and the king at the same moment looking up, their 
eyes encountered. Instant flight preserved the 
involuntary criminal. But during the remainder 
of that reign he must lurk and be hid by friends in 
remote parts of the isle; Nakaeia hunted him with- 
out remission, although still in vain; and the palms, 
accessories to the fact, were ruthlessly cut down. 
Such was the ideal of wifely purity in an isle where 
nubile virgins went naked as in paradise. And yet 
~ scandal found its way into Nakaeia’s well-guarded 
harem. He was at that time the owner of a 
schooner, which he used for a pleasure-house, lodg- 
ing on board as she lay anchored; and thither one 
day he summoned a new wife. She was one that 
had been sealed to him; that is to say (I presume), 
that he was married to her sister, for the husband 
of an elder sister has the call of the cadets. She 
would be arrayed for the occasion; she would come 
scented, garlanded, decked with fine mats and 
family jewels, for marriage, as her friends sup- 
posed; for death, as she well knew. “ Tell me the 
man’s name, and I will spare you,” said Nakaeia. 
But the girl was staunch; she held her peace, saved 
her lover; and the queens strangled her between 
the mats. 

Nakaeia was feared; it does not appear that he 
was hated. Deeds that smell to us of murder wore 
to his subjects the reverend face of justice; his 
orgies made him popular; natives to this day re- 
call with respect the firmness of his government ; 


254. IN°TRPHE SOUT HYSEAS 


and even the whites, whom he long opposed and 
kept at arm’s-length, give him the name (in the 
canonical South Sea phrase) of “a perfect gentle- 
man when sober.”’ 

When he came to lie, without issue, on the bed 
of death, he summoned his next brother, Nan- 
teitei, made him a discourse on royal policy, and 
warned him he was too weak to reign. The warn- 
ing was taken to heart, and for some while the 
government moved on the model of Nakaeia’s. 
Nanteitei dispensed with guards, and walked 
abroad alone with a revolver in a leather mail-bag. 
To conceal his weakness he affected a rude silence; 
you might talk to him all day; advice, reproof, 
appeal, and menace alike remained unanswered. 
The number of his wives was seventeen, many of 
them heiresses; for the royal house is poor, and 
marriage was in these days a chief means of but- 
tressing the throne. Nakaeia kept his harem busy 
for himself; Nanteitei hired it out to others. In 
his days, for instance, Messrs. Wightman built a 
pier with a veranda at the north end of the town. 
The masonry was the work of the seventeen queens, 
who toiled and waded there like fisher lasses; but 
the man who was to do the roofing durst not begin 
till they had finished, lest by chance he should 
look down and see them. 

It was perhaps the last appearance of the harem 
gang. For some time already Hawaiian mission- 
aries had been seated at Butaritari— Maka and 
Kanoa, two brave childlike men. Nakaeia would 
none of their doctrine; he was perhaps jealous of 


THE GILBERTS 255 


their presence; being human, he had some affec- 
tion for their persons. In the house, before the 
eyes of Kanoa, he slew with his own hand three 
sailors of Oahu, crouching on their backs to knife 
them, and menacing the missionary if he inter- 
fered; yet he not only spared him at the moment, 
but recalled him afterwards (when he had fled) 
with some expressions of respect. Nanteitei, the 
weaker man, fell more completely under the spell. 
Maka —a light-hearted, lovable, yet in his own 
trade very rigorous man — gained and improved an 
influence on the king which soon grew paramount. 
Nanteitei, with the royal house, was publicly con- 
verted; and, with a severity which liberal mis- 
sionaries disavow, the harem was at once reduced. 
It was a compendious act. The throne was thus 
impoverished, its influence shaken, the queens’ rela- 
tives mortified, and sixteen chief women (some of 
great possessions) cast in a body on the market. 
I have been shipmates with a Hawaiian sailor who 
was successively married to two of these impromptu 
widows, and successively divorced by both for mis- 
conduct. That two great and rich ladies (for both 
of these were rich) should have married “a man 
fom another island” marks the dissolution of 
imeciety. The laws besides were wholly remodelled, 
not always for the better. I love Maka as a man; 
as a legislator he has two defects: weak in the 
punishment of crime, stern to repress innocent 
pleasures. 

War and revolution are the common successors 
of reform; yet Nanteitei died (of an overdose of 


256 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


chloroform) in quiet possession of the throne, and 
it was in the reign of the third brother, Nabaka- 
tokia, a man brave in body and feeble of character, 
that the storm burst. The rule of the high chiefs 
and notables seems to have always underlain and 
perhaps alternated with monarchy. The Old 
Men (as they were called) have a right to sit with 
the king in the Speak House and debate: and the 
king’s chief superiority is a form of closure — 
“The Speaking is over.”” After the long monoc- 
racy of Nakaeia and the changes of Nanteitei, the 
Old Men were doubtless grown impatient of ob- 
scurity, and they were beyond question jealous of 
the influence of Maka. Calumny, or rather cari- 
cature, was called in use; a spoken cartoon ran 
round society; Maka was reported to have said in 
church that the king was the first man in the island 
and himself the second; and, stung by the sup- 
posed affront, the chiefs broke into rebellion and 
armed gatherings. In the space of one forenoon 
the throne of Nakaeia was humbled in the dust. 
The king sat in the maniap’ before the palace gate 
expecting his recruits; Maka by his side, both anx- 
ious men; and meanwhile, in the door of a house 
at the north entry of the town, a chief had taken 
post and diverted the succours as they came. They 
came singly or in groups, each with his gun or 
pistol slung about his neck. ‘‘ Where are you 
going?” asked the chief. “ The king called us,” 
they would reply. “Here is your place. Sit 
down,” returned the chief. With incredible dis- 
loyalty, all obeyed; and sufficient force being thus 


THE GILBERTS. SEF 


got together from both sides, Nabakatokia was 
summoned and surrendered. About this period, 
in almost every part of the group, the kings were 
murdered; and on Tapituea, the skeleton of the 
last hangs to this day in the chief Speak House of 
the isle, a menace to ambition. Nabakatokia was 
more fortunate; his life and the royal style were 
spared to him, but he was stripped of power. The 
Old Men enjoyed a festival of public speaking; 
the laws were continually changed, never enforced ; 
the commons had an opportunity to regret the 
merits of Nakaeia; and the king, denied the re- 
source of rich marriages and the service of a troop 
of wives, fell not only in disconsideration but in 
debt. 

He died some months before my arrival in the 
islands, and no one regretted him; rather all 
looked hopefully to his successor. This was by 
repute the hero of the family. Alone of the four 
brothers, he had issue, a grown son, Natiata, and a 
daughter three years old; it was to him, in the hour 
of the revolution, that Nabakatokia turned too late 
for help; and in earlier days he had been the right 
hand of the vigorous Nakaeia. Nantemat’, Mr. 
Corpse, was his appalling nickname, and he had 
earned it well. Again and again, at the command 
of Nakaeia, he had surrounded houses in the dead 
of night, cut down the mosquito bars and butchered 
families. Here was the hand of iron; here was 
Nakaeia redux. He came, summoned from the 
tributary rule of Little Makin: he was installed, 
he proved a puppet and a trembler, the unwieldy 

W 


a8 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


shuttlecock of orators; and the reader has seen the 
remains of him in his summer parlour under the 
name of Tebureimoa. 

The change in the man’s character was much 
commented on in the island, and variously ex- 
plained by opium and Christianity. To my eyes, 
there seemed no change at all, rather an extreme 
consistency. Mr. Corpse was afraid of his brother: 
King Tebureimoa is afraid of the Old Men. Ter- 
ror of the first nerved him for deeds of desperation ; 
fear of the second disables him for the least act of 
government. He played his part of bravo in the 
past, following the line of least resistance, butch- 
ering others in his own defence: to-day, grown 
elderly and heavy, a convert, a reader of the Bible, 
perhaps a penitent, conscious at least of accumu- 
lated hatreds, and his memory charged with images 
of violence and blood, he capitulates to the Old 
Men, fuddles himself with opium, and sits among 
his guards in dreadful expectation. The same 
cowardice that put into his hand the knife of the 
assassin deprives him of the sceptre of a king. 

A tale that I was told, a trifling incident that 
fell in my observation, depict him in his two capaci- 
ties. A chief in Little Makin asked, in an hour of 
lightness, ““ Who is Kaeia?”’ A bird carried the 
saying; and Nakaeia placed the matter in the 
hands of a committee of three. Mr. Corpse was 
chairman; the second commissioner died before 
my arrival; the third was yet alive and green, and 
presented so venerable an appearance that we gave 
him the name of Abou ben Adhem. Mr. Corpse 


ies (GLO BER T'S 259 


was troubled with a scruple; the man from Little 
Makin was his adopted brother; in such a case 
it was not very delicate to appear at all, to strike 
the blow (which it seems was otherwise expected 
of him) would be worse than awkward. “I will 
strike the blow,” said the venerable Abou; and Mr. 
Corpse (surely with a sigh) accepted the compro- 
mise. The quarry was decoyed into the bush; 
he was set to carrying a log; and while his arms 
were raised Abou ripped up his belly at a blow. 
Justice being thus done, the commission, in a child- 
ish horror, turned to flee. But their victim recalled 
them to his side. ‘‘ You need not run away now,” 
he said. “ You have done this thing to me. Stay.” 
He was some twenty minutes dying, and his mur- 
derers sat with him the while: a scene for Shake- 
speare. All the stages of a violent death, the blood, 
the failing voice, the decomposing features, the 
changed hue, are thus present in the memory of 
Mr. Corpse; and since he studied them in the 
brother he betrayed, he has some reason to reflect 
on the possibilities of treachery. I was never more 
sure of anything than the tragic quality of the 
king’s thoughts; and yet I had but the one sight 
of him at unawares. I had once an errand for his 
ear. It was once more the hour of the siesta; but 
there were loiterers abroad, and these directed us 
to a closed house on the bank of the canal where 
Tebureimoa lay unguarded. We entered without 
ceremony, being in some haste. He lay on the 
floor upon a bed of mats, reading in his Gilbert 
Island Bible with compunction. On our sudden 


260 IN THE (SOW Thy Sites 


entrance the unwieldy man reared himself half 
sitting so that the Bible rolled on the floor, stared 
on us a moment with blank eyes, and, having rec- 
ognised his visitors, sank again upon the mats. 
So Eglon looked on Ehud. 

The justice of facts is strange, and strangely 
just: Nakaeia, the author of these deeds, died at 
peace discoursing on the craft of kings; his tool 
suffers daily death for his enforced. complicity. 
Not the nature, but the congruity of men’s deeds 
and circumstances damn and save them; and 
Tebureimoa from the first has been incongruously 
placed. At home, in a quiet by-street of a village, 
the man had been a worthy carpenter, and, even 
bedevilled as he is, he shows some private virtues. 
He has no lands, only the use of such as are im- 
pignorate for fines; he cannot enrich himself in 
the old way by marriages; thrift is the chief pillar 
of his future, and he knows and uses it. Eleven 
foreign traders pay him a patent of a hundred dol- 
lars, some two thousand subjects pay capitation at 
the rate of a dollar for a man, half a dollar for a 
woman, and a shilling for a child: allowing for the 
exchange, perhaps, a total of three hundred pounds 
a year. He had been some nine months on the 
throne: had bought his wife a silk dress and hat, 
figure unknown, and himself a uniform at three 
hundred dollars; had sent his brother’s photograph 
to be enlarged in San Francisco at two hundred 
and fifty dollars; had greatly reduced that brother’s 
legacy of debt; and had still sovereigns in his 
pocket. An affectionate brother, a good economist; 


THE GILBERTS 261 


he was besides a handy carpenter, and coggled 
occasionally on the woodwork of the palace. It 
is not wonderful that Mr. Corpse has virtues; that 
Tebureimoa should have a diversion filled me with 
surprise. 


CHAPTER III 


AROUND OUR HOUSE 


\ ) Y HEN we left the palace we were still 
but seafarers ashore; and within the 

hour we had installed our goods in one 

of the six foreign houses of Butaritari, namely, 
that usually occupied by Maka, the Hawaiian mis- 
sionary. Two San Francisco firms are here estab- 
lished, Messrs. Crawford and Messrs. Wightman 
Brothers; the first hard by the palace of the mid 
town, the second at the north entry; each with a 
store-and bar-room. Our house was in the Wight- 
man compound, betwixt the store and bar, within 
a fenced enclosure. Across the road a few native 
houses nestled in the margin of the bush, and the 
green wall of palms rose solid, shutting out the 
breeze. A little sandy cove of the lagoon ran in 
behind, sheltered by a veranda pier, the labour of 
queens’ hands. Here, when the tide was high, 
sailed boats lay to be loaded; when the tide was 
low, the boats took ground some half a mile away, 
and an endless series of natives descended the pier 
stair, tailed across the sand in strings and clusters, 
waded to the waist with the bags of copra, and 
loitered backward to renew their charge. The 


THE GILBERTS 263 


mystery of the copra trade tormented me, as I sat 
and watched the profits drip on the stair and the 
sands. 

In front, from shortly after four in the morning 
until nine at night, the folk of the town streamed 
by us intermittingly along the road: families going 
up the island to make copra on their lands; women 
bound for the bush to gather flowers against the 
evening toilet; and, twice a day, the toddy-cutters, 
each with his knife and shell. In the first grey of 
the morning, and again late in the afternoon, these 
would straggle past about their tree-top business, 
strike off here and there into the bush, and vanish 
from the face of earth. At about the same hour, 
if the tide be low in the lagoon, you are likely to 
be bound yourself across the island for a bath, and 
may enter close at their heels alleys of the palm 
wood. Right in front, although the sun is not yet 
risen, the east is already lighted with preparatory 
fires, and the huge accumulations of the trade- 
wind cloud glow with and heliograph the coming 
day. The breeze is in your face; overhead in the 
tops of the palms, its playthings, it maintains a 
lively bustle; look where you will, above or below, 
there is no human presence, only the earth and 
shaken forest. And right overhead the song of 
an invisible singer breaks from the thick leaves; 
from farther on a second tree-top answers; and 
beyond again, in the bosom of the woods, a still 
more distant minstrel perches and sways and sings. 
So, all round the isle, the toddy-cutters sit on high, 
and are rocked by the trade, and have a view far to 


264. IN “DEE :S O(0)T HSB As 


seaward, where they keep watch for sails, and like 
huge birds utter their songs in the morning. They 
sing with a certain lustiness and Bacchic glee; the 
volume of sound and the articulate melody fall 
unexpected from the tree-top, whence we antici- 
pate the chattering of fowls. And yet in a sense 
these songs also are but chatters; the words are 
ancient, obsolete, and sacred; few comprehend 
them, perhaps no one perfectly; but it was under- 
stood the cutters “ prayed to have good toddy, and 
sang of their old wars.’’ The prayer is at least 
answered; and when the foaming shell is brought 
to your door, you have a beverage well “ worthy 
of a grace.” All forenoon you may return and 
taste; it only sparkles, and sharpens, and grows 
to be a new drink, not less delicious; but with the 
progress of the day the fermentation quickens and 
grows acid; in twelve hours it will be yeast for 
bread, in two days more a devilish intoxicant, the 
counsellor of crime. 

The men are of a marked Arabian cast of fea- 
tures, often bearded and mustached, often gaily 
dressed, some with bracelets and anklets, all stalk- 
ing hidalgo-like, and accepting salutations with a 
haughty lip. The hair (with the dandies of either 
sex) is worn turban-wise in a frizzled bush; and 
like the daggers of the Japanese, a pointed stick 
(used for a comb) is thrust gallantly among the 
curls. The women from this bush of hair look 
forth enticingly: the race cannot be compared with 
the Tahitian for female beauty; I doubt even if the 
average be high; but some of the prettiest girls, 


THE GILBERTS ‘26s 


and one of the handsomest women I ever saw, were 
Gilbertines. Butaritari, being the commercial 
centre of the group, is Europeanised; the col- 
oured sacque or the white shift are common wear, 
the latter for the evening; the trade hat, loaded 
with flowers, fruit, and ribbons, is unfortunately 
not unknown; and the characteristic female dress 
of the Gilberts no longer universal. The ridi is its 
name: a cutty petticoat or fringe of the smoked 
fibre of cocoa-nut leaf, not unlike tarry string; the 
lower edge not reaching the mid-thigh, the upper 
adjusted so low upon the haunches that it seems to 
cling by accident. A sneeze, you think, and the 
lady must surely be left destitute. ‘‘ The perilous, 
hairbreadth ridi” was our word for it; and in 
the conflict that rages over women’s dress it has 
the misfortune to please neither side, the prudish 
condemning it as insufficient, the more frivolous 
finding it unlovely in itself. Yet if a pretty Gil- 
bertine would look her best, that must be her cos- 
tume. In that, and naked otherwise, she moves 
with an incomparable liberty and grace and life, 
that marks the poetry of Micronesia. Bundle her 
in a gown, the charm is fled, and she wriggles like 
an Englishwoman. 

Towards dusk the passers-by became more gor- 
geous. The men broke out in all the colours of the 
rainbow —or at least of the trade-room — and 
both men and women began to be adorned and 
scented with new flowers. A small white blossom 
is the favourite, sometimes sown singly in a 
woman’s hair like little stars, now composed in a 


266). DON P AES Oo Ue Seas 


thick wreath. With the night, the crowd some- 
times thickened in the road, and the padding and 
brushing of bare feet became continuous; the 
promenades mostly grave, the silence only inter- 
rupted by some giggling and scampering of girls; 
even the children quiet. At nine, bedtime struck 
on a bell from the cathedral, and the life of the 
town ceased. At four the next morning the sig- 
nal is repeated in the darkness, and the innocent 
prisoners set free; but for seven hours all must lie 
—I was about to say within doors, of a place 
where doors, and even walls, are an exception — 
housed, at least, under their airy roofs and clus- 
tered in the tents of the mosquito-nets. Suppose a 
necessary errand to occur, suppose it imperative to 
send abroad, the messenger must then go openly, 
advertising himself to the police with a huge brand 
of cocoa-nut, which flares from house to house like 
a moving bonfire. Only the police themselves go 
darkling, and grope in the night for misdemean- 
ants. I used to hate their treacherous presence; 
their captain in particular, a crafty old man in 
white, lurked nightly about my premises till I could 
have found it in my heart to beat him. But the 
rogue was privileged. 

Not one of the eleven resident traders came to 
town, no captain cast anchor in the lagoon, but we 
saw him ere the hour was out. This was owing to 
our position between the store and the bar —the 
Sans Souct, as the last was called. Mr. Rick was 
not only Messrs. Wightman’s manager, but con- 
sular agent for the States; Mrs. Rick was the 


THE GILBERTS 267 


only white woman on the island, and one of the 
only two in the archipelago; their house besides, 
with its cool verandas, its bookshelves, its com- 
fortable furniture, could not be rivalled nearer than 
Jaluit or Honolulu. Every one called in conse- 
quence, save such as might be prosecuting a South 
Sea quarrel, hingeing on the price of copra and the 
odd cent, or perhaps a difference about poultry. 
Even these, if they did not appear upon the north, 
would be presently visible to the southward, the 
Sans Souci drawing them as with cords. In an 
island with a total population of twelve white 
persons, one of the two drinking-shops might seem 
superfluous; but every bullet has its billet, and the 
double accommodation of Butaritari is found in 
practice highly convenient by the captains and the 
crews of ships: The Land we Live in being tacitly 
resigned to the forecastle, the Sans Souci tacitly 
reserved for the after-guard. So aristocratic were 
my habits, so commanding was my fear of Mr. 
Williams, that I have never visited the first; but in 
the other, which was the club or rather the casino 
of the island, I regularly passed my evenings. It 
was small, but neatly fitted, and at night (when the 
lamp was lit) sparkled with glass and glowed with 
coloured pictures like a theatre at Christmas. The 
pictures were advertisements, the glass coarse 
enough, the carpentry amateur; but the effect, in 
that incongruous isle, was of unbridled luxury and 
inestimable expense. Here songs were sung, tales 
told, tricks performed, games played. The Ricks,’ 
ourselves, Norwegian Tom the bar-keeper, a cap- 


268 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


tain or two from the ships, and perhaps three or 
four traders come down the island in their boats or 
by the road on foot, made up the usual company. 
The traders, all bred to the sea, take a humourous 
pride in their new business; “ South Sea Mer- 
chants” is the title they prefer. “ We are all 
sailors here’? — “ Merchants, if you please” — 
“ South Sea Merchants,’ — was a piece of con- 
versation endlessly repeated, that never seemed to 
lose in savour. We found them at all times simple, 
genial, gay, gallant, and obliging; and, across 
some interval of time, recall with pleasure the 
traders of Butaritari. There was one black sheep 
indeed. I tell of him here where he lived, against 
my rule; for in this case I have no measure to pre- 
serve, and the man is typical of a class of rufhans 
that once disgraced the whole field of the South 
Seas, and still linger in the rarely visited isles of 
Micronesia. He had the name on the beach of 
“a perfect gentleman when sober,” but I never 
saw him otherwise than drunk. The few shocking 
and savage traits of the Micronesian he has singled 
out with the skill of a collector, and planted in the 
soil of his original baseness. He has been accused 
and acquitted of a treacherous murder; and has 
since boastfully owned it, which inclines me to sup- 
pose him innocent. His daughter is defaced by his 
erroneous cruelty, for it was his wife he had in- 
tended to disfigure, and, in the darkness of the 
night and the frenzy of cocoa-brandy, fastened on 
the wrong victim. The wife has since fled and har- 
bours in the bush with natives; and the husband 


THE GILBERTS 269 


still demands from deaf ears her forcible restora- 
tion. The best of his business is to make natives 
drink, and then advance the money for the fine upon 
a lucrative mortgage. ‘‘ Respect for whites ”’ is the 
man’s word: “ What is the matter with this island 
is the want of respect for whites.” On his way to 
Butaritari, while I was there, he spied his wife in 
the bush with certain natives and made a dash to 
capture her; whereupon one of her companions 
drew a knife, and the husband retreated: ‘‘ Do you 
call that proper respect for whites?” he cried. At 
an early stage of the acquaintance we proved our 
respect for his kind of white by forbidding him 
our enclosure under pain of death. Thenceforth 
he lingered often in the neighbourhood with I knew 
not what sense of envy or design of mischief; his 
white, handsome face (which I beheld with loath- 
ing) looked in upon us at all hours across the fence ; 
and once, from a safe distance, he avenged him- 
self by shouting a recondite island insult, to us 
quite inoffensive, on his English lips incredibly 
incongruous. 

Our enclosure, round which this composite of 
degradations wandered, was of some extent. In 
one corner was a trellis with a long table of rough 
boards. Here the Fourth of July feast had been 
held not long before with memorable consequences, 
yet to be set forth; here we took our meals; here. 
entertained to a dinner the king and notables of 
Makin. In the midst was the house, with a ve- 
randa front and back, and three rooms within. In 
the veranda we slung our man-of-war hammocks, 


2700 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


worked there by day, and slept at night. Within 
were beds, chairs, a round table, a fine hanging- 
lamp, and portraits of the royal family of Hawaii. 
Queen Victoria proves nothing; Kalakaua and Mrs. 
Bishop are diagnostic; and the truth is we were 
the stealthy tenants of the parsonage. On the day 
of our arrival Maka was away; faithless trustees 
unlocked his doors; and the dear rigorous man, 
the sworn foe of liquor and tobacco, returned to 
find his veranda littered with cigarettes and his 
parlour horrible with bottles. He made but one 
condition — on the round table, which he used in 
the celebration of the sacraments, he begged us to 
refrain from setting liquor; in all else he bowed to 
the accomplished fact, refused rent, retired across 
the way into a native house, and, plying in his boat, 
beat the remotest quarters of the isle for provender. 
He found us pigs —I could not fancy where — no 
other pigs were visible; he brought us fowls and 
taro; when we gave our feast to the monarch and 
gentry, it was he who supplied the wherewithal, 
he who superintended the cooking, he who asked 
grace at table, and when the king’s health was pro- 
posed, he also started the cheering with an English 
hip-hip-hip. There was never a more fortunate 
conception; the heart of the fatted king exulted 
in his bosom at the sound. 

Take him for all in all, I have never known a 
more engaging creature than this parson of Buta- 
ritari: his mirth, his kindness, his noble, friendly 
feelings, brimmed from the man in speech and 
gesture. He loved to exaggerate, to act and over- 


Pray GLEBER TS 271 


act the momentary part, to exercise his lungs and 
muscles, and to speak and laugh with his whole 
body. He had the morning cheerfulness of birds 
and healthy children; and his humour was infec- 
tious. We were next neighbours and met daily, 
yet our salutations lasted minutes at.a stretch — 
shaking hands, slapping shoulders, capering like 
a pair of Merry-Andrews, laughing to split our 
sides upon some pleasantry that would scarce raise 
a titter in an infant-school. It might be five in 
the morning, the toddy-cutters just gone by, the 
road empty, the shade of the island lying far on 
the lagoon: and the ebullition cheered me for the 
day. 

Yet I always suspected Maka of a secret melan- 
choly; these jubilant extremes could scarce be con- 
stantly maintained. He was besides long, and lean, 
and lined, and corded, and a trifle grizzled; and 
his Sabbath countenance was even saturnine. On 
that day we made a procession to the church, or (as 
I must always call it) the cathedral: Maka (a blot 
on the hot landscape) in tall hat, black frock-coat, 
black trousers; under his arm the hymn-book and 
the Bible; in his face, a reverent gravity : — beside 
him Mary his wife, a quiet, wise, and handsome 
elderly lady, seriously attired: — myself following 
with singular and moving thoughts. Long before, 
to the sound of bells and streams and birds, through 
a green Lothian glen, I had accompanied Sunday 
by Sunday a minister in whose house I lodged; 
and the likeness, and the difference, and the series 
of years and deaths, profoundly touched me. In 


72 "IN THE S0 U Tints 


the great, dusky, palm-tree cathedral the congrega- 
tion rarely numbered thirty: the men on one side, 
the women on the other, myself posted (for a priv- 
ilege) amongst the women, and the small mission- 
ary contingent gathered close around the platform, 
we were lost in that round vault. The lessons were 
read antiphonally, the flock was catechised, a blind 
youth repeated weekly a long string of psalms, 
hymns were sung —I never heard worse singing 
— and the sermon followed. To say I understood 
nothing were untrue; there were points that I 
learned to expect with certainty; the name of 
Honolulu, that of Kalakaua, the word Cap’n-man- 
o’-wa’, the word ship, and a description of a storm 
at sea, infallibly occurred; and I was not seldom 
rewarded with the name of my own Sovereign in 
the bargain. The rest was but sound to the ears, 
silence for the mind: a plain expanse of tedium, 
rendered unbearable by heat, a hard chair, and the 
sight through the widéw™doors of the more happy 
heathen on the green. Sleep breathed on my joints 
and eyelids, sleep hummed in my ears; it reigned 
in the dim cathedral. The congregation stirred 
and stretched; they moaned, they groaned aloud; 
they yawned upon a singing note, as you may 
sometimes hear a dog when he has reached the 
tragic bitterest of boredom. In vain the preacher 
thumped the table; in vain he singled and ad- 
dressed by name particular hearers. I was myself 
perhaps a more effective excitant; and at least to 
one old gentleman the spectacle of my successful 
struggles against sleep— and J] hope they were 


THE GILBERTS 273 


successful — cheered the flight of time. He, when 
he was not catching flies or playing tricks upon 
his neighbours, gloated with a fixed, truculent eye 
upon the stages of my agony; and once, when the 
service was drawing towards a close, he winked 
at me across the church. 

I write of the service with a smile; yet I was 
always there— always with respect for Maka, 
always with admiration for his deep seriousness, 
his burning energy, the fire of his roused eye, the 
sincere and various accents of his voice. To see 
him weekly flogging a dead horse and blowing a 
cold fire was a lesson in fortitude and constancy. 
It may be a question whether if the mission were 
fully supported, and he was set free from business 
avocations, more might not result; I think other- 
wise myself; I think not neglect but rigour has 
reduced his flock, that rigour which has once pro- 
voked a revolution, and which to-day, in a man 
so lively and engaging, amazes the beholder. No 
song, no dance, no tobacco, no liquor, no allevia- 
tive of life — only toil and church-going; so says 
a voice from his face; and the face is the face of 
the Polynesian Esau, but the voice is the voice of 
a Jacob from a different world. Anda Polynesian 
at the best makes a singular missionary in the 
Gilberts, coming from a country recklessly un- 
chaste to one conspicuously strict; from a race 
hag-ridden with bogies to one comparatively bold 
against the terrors of the dark. The thought was 
stamped one morning in my mind, when I chanced 
to be abroad by moonlight, and saw all the town 

18 


2744 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


lightless, but the lamp faithfully burning by the 
missionarys bed. It requires no law, no fire, 
and no scouting police, to withhold Maka and 
his countrymen from wandering in the night 
unlighted. 


CHAPTER IV 


A TALE OF A TAPU 


N the morrow of our arrival (Sunday, 
() 14th July, 1889) our photographers were 

early stirring. Once more we traversed 
a silent town; many were yet abed and asleep; 
some sat drowsily in their open houses; there was 
no sound of intercourse or business. In that hour 
before the shadows, the quarter of the palace and 
canal seemed like a landing-place in the Arabian 
Nights or from the classic poets; here were the 
fit destination of some “ faery frigot,’ here some 
adventurous prince might step ashore among new 
characters and incidents; and the island prison, 
where it floated on the luminous face of the lagoon, 
might have passed for the repository of the Grail. 
In such a scene, and at such an hour, the impression 
received was not so much of foreign travel — rather 
of past ages; it seemed not so much degrees of 
latitude that we had crossed, as centuries of time 
that we had reascended; leaving, by the same 
steps, home and to-day. A few children followed 
us, mostly nude, all silent; in the clear, weedy 
waters of the canal some silent damsels waded, 
baring their brown thighs; and to one of the 


276 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


maniap’s before the palace gate we were attracted 
by a low but stirring hum of speech. 

The oval shed was full of men sitting cross- 
legged. The king was there in striped pajamas, 
his rear protected by four guards with Winchesters, 
his air and bearing marked by unwonted spirit and 
decision; tumblers and black bottles went the 
round; and the talk, throughout loud, was general 
and animated. I was inclined at first to view this 
scene with suspicion. But the hour appeared un- 
suitable for a carouse; drink was besides forbidden 
equally by the law of the land and the canons of 
the church; and while I was yet hesitating, the 
king’s rigorous attitude disposed of my last doubt. 
We had come, thinking to photograph him sur- 
rounded by his guards, and at the first word of 
the design his piety revolted. We were reminded 
of the day —the Sabbath —in which thou shalt 
take no photographs — and returned with a flea in 
our ear, bearing the rejected camera. 

At church, a little later, I was struck to find the 
throne unoccupied. So nice a Sabbatarian might 
have found the means to be present; perhaps my 
doubts revived; and before I got home they were 
transformed to certainties. Tom, the bar-keeper 
of the Sans Souci, was in conversation with two 
emissaries from the court. The “keen,” they said, 
wanted “din,” failing which, “ perandi.”’? No 
“ din,’ was Tom’s reply, and no “ perandi”; but 
“pira” if they pleased. It seems they had no 
use for beer, and departed sorrowing. 

1 Gin and Brandy. 


THE GILBERTS 277 


“Why, what is the meaning of all this?” I 
asked. “Is the island on the spree?” 

Such was the fact. On the 4th of July a feast 
had been made, and the king, at the suggestion 
of the whites, had raised the tapu against liquor. 
There is a proverb about horses; it scarce applies 
to the superior animal, of whom it may be rather 
said, that any one can start him drinking, not any 
twenty can prevail on him to stop. The tapu, 
raised ten days before, was not yet reimposed; 
for ten days the town had been passing the bottle 
or lying (as we had seen it the afternoon before) 
in hoggish sleep; and the king, moved by the Old 
Men and his own appetites, continued to maintain 
the liberty, to squander his savings on liquor, and 
to join in and lead the debauch. The whites were 
the authors of this crisis; it was upon their own 
proposal that the freedom had been granted at the 
first; and for awhile, in the interests of trade, they 
were doubtless pleased it should continue. That 
pleasure had now sometime ceased; the bout had 
been prolonged (it was conceded) unduly; and it 
now began to be a question how it might con- 
clude. Hence Tom’s refusal. Yet that refusal was 
avowedly only for the moment, and it was avowedly 
unavailing; the king’s foragers, denied by Tom at 
the Sans Souci, would be supplied at The Land we 
Live in by the gobbling Mr. Williams. 

The degree of the peril was not easy to measure 
at the time, and I am inclined to think now it was 
easy to exaggerate. Yet the conduct of drunkards 
even at home is always matter for anxiety; and 


78 ING DH Ee SO Tehik Sawe 


at home our populations are not armed from the 
highest to the lowest with revolvers and repeating 
rifles, neither do we go on a debauch by the whole 
townful — and I might rather say, by the whole 
polity — king, magistrates, police, and army join- 
ing in one common scene of drunkenness. It must 
be thought besides that we were here in barbarous 
islands, rarely visited, lately and partly civilised. 
First and last, a really considerable number of 
whites have perished in the Gilberts, chiefly through 
their own misconduct; and the natives have dis- 
played in at least one instance a disposition to 
conceal an accident under a butchery, and leave 
nothing but dumb bones. This last was the chief 
consideration against a sudden closing of the bars; 
the bar-keepers stood in the immediate breach and 
dealt direct with madmen; too surly a refusal 
might at any moment precipitate a blow, and the 
blow might prove the signal for a massacre. 
Monday, 15th. — At the same hour we returned 
to the same maniap’. Kiimmel (of all drinks) was 
served in tumblers; in the midst sat the crown 
prince, a fatted youth, surrounded by fresh bottles 
and busily plying the corkscrew; and king, chief, 
and commons showed the loose mouth, the uncer- 
tain joints, and the blurred and animated eye of 
the early drinker. It was plain we were impatiently 
expected; the king retired with alacrity to dress, 
the guards were despatched after their uniforms; 
and we were left to await the issue of these prepa- 
rations with a shedful of tipsy natives. The orgie 
had proceeded further than on Sunday. The day 


THE GILBERTS 279 


promised to be of great heat; it was already sultry, 
the courtiers were already fuddled; and still the 
kimmel continued to go round, and the crown 
prince to play butler. Flemish freedom followed 
upon Flemish excess; and a funny dog, a hand- 
some fellow, gaily dressed, and with a full turban 
of frizzed hair, delighted the company with a hu- 
mourous courtship of a lady in a manner not to 
be described. It was our diversion, in this time of 
waiting, to observe the gathering of the guards. 
They have European arms, European uniforms, 
and (to their sorrow) European shoes. We saw 
one warrior (like Mars) in the article of being 
armed; two men and a stalwart woman were 
scarce strong enough to boot him; and after a 
single appearance on parade the army is crippled 
for a week. 

At last, the gates under the king’s house opened ; 
the army issued, one behind another, with guns and 
epaulettes; the colours stooped under the gateway ; 
majesty followed in his uniform bedizened with 
gold lace; majesty’s wife came next in a hat and 
feathers, and an ample trained silk gown; the 
royal imps succeeded; there stood the pageantry of 
Makin marshalled on its chosen theatre. Dickens 
might have told how serious they were; how tipsy ; 
how the king melted and streamed under his cocked 
hat; how he took station by the larger of his two 
cannons — austere, majestic, but not truly vertical ; 
how the troops huddled, and were straightened out, 
and clubbed again; how they and their firelocks 
raked at various inclinations like the masts of 


280 INWT H EXSO UD TAS lass 


ships; and how an amateur photographer reviewed, 
arrayed, and adjusted them, to see his dispositions 
change before he reached the camera. 

The business was funny to see; I do not know 
that it is graceful to laugh at; and our report of 
these transactions was received on. our return with 
the shaking of grave heads. 

The day had begun ill; eleven hours divided 
us from sunset; and at any moment, on the most 
trifling chance, the trouble might begin. The 
Wightman compound was in a military sense un- 
tenable, commanded on three sides by houses and 
thick bush; the town was computed to contain 
over a thousand stand of excellent new arms; and 
retreat to the ships, in the case of an alert, was a 
recourse not to be thought of. Our talk that morn- 
ing must have closely reproduced the talk in Eng- 
lish garrisons before the Sepoy mutiny; the sturdy 
doubt that any mischief was in prospect, the sure 
belief that (should any come) there was nothing 
left but to go down fighting, the half-amused, half- 
anxious attitude of mind in which we were await- 
ing fresh developments. 

The kttimmel soon ran out; we were scarce re- 
turned before the king had followed us in quest of 
more. Mr. Corpse was now divested of his more 
awful attitude, the lawless bulk of him again en- 
cased in striped pajamas; a guardsman brought up 
the rear with his rifle at the trail; and his majesty 
was further accompanied by a Rarotongan whaler- 
man and the playful courtier with the turban of 
frizzed hair. There was never a more lively dep- 


THE GILBERTS 281 


utation. The whalerman was gapingly, tearfully 
tipsy; the courtier walked on air; the king himself 
was even sportive. Seated in a chair in the Ricks’ 
sitting-room, he bore the brunt of our prayers and 
menaces unmoved. He was even rated, plied with 
historic instances, threatened with the men-of-war, 
ordered to restore the tapu on the spot — and 
nothing in the least affected him. It should be 
done to-morrow, he said; to-day it was beyond 
his power, to-day he durst not. “Is that royal?”’ 
cried indignant Mr. Rick. No, it was not royal; 
had the king been of a royal character we should 
ourselves have held a different language; and royal 
or not, he had the best of the dispute. The terms 
indeed were hardly equal; for the king was the 
only man who could restore the tapu, but the Ricks 
were not the only people who sold drink. He had 
but to hold his ground on the first question, and 
they were sure to weaken on the second. A little 
struggle they still made for the fashion’s sake; 
and then one exceedingly tipsy deputation departed, 
greatly rejoicing, a case of brandy wheeling beside 
them in a barrow. The Rarotongan (whom I had 
never seen before) wrung me by the hand like a 
man bound on a far voyage. ‘‘ My dear frien’!” 
he cried, ‘‘ good-bye, my dear frien’! ’’ —tears of 
kummel standing in his eyes; the king lurched as 
he went, the courtier ambled, —a strange party 
of intoxicated children to be intrusted with that 
barrowful of madness. 

You could never say the town was quiet; all 
morning there was a ferment in the air, an aimless 


282 IN; * THE *S OW TINA S is 


movement and congregation of natives in the street. 
But it was not before half-past one that a sudden 
hubbub of voices called us from the house, to find 
the whole white colony already gathered on the 
spot as by concerted signal. The Sans Souct 
Was overrun with rabble, the stair and veranda 
thronged. From all these throats an inarticulate 
babbling cry went up incessantly; it sounded like 
the bleating of young lambs, but angrier. In the 
road his royal highness (whom I had seen so lately 
in the part of butler) stood crying upon Tom; on 
the top step, tossed in the hurly-burly, Tom was 
shouting to the prince. Yet awhile the pack 
swayed about the bar, vociferous. Then came a 
brutal impulse; the mob reeled, and returned and 
was rejected; the stair showed a stream of heads; 
and there shot into view, through the disbanding 
ranks, three men violently dragging in their midst 
a fourth. By his hair and his hands, his head 
forced as low as his knees, his face concealed, he 
was wrenched from the veranda and whisked along 
the road into the village, howling as he disappeared. 
Had his face been raised, we should have seen it 
bloodied, and the blood was not his own. The 
courtier with the turban of frizzed hair had paid 
the costs of this disturbance with the lower part 
of one ear. 

So the brawl passed with no other casualty than 
might seem comic to the inhumane. Yet we looked 
round on serious faces and —a fact that spoke 
volumes — Tom was putting up the shutters on the 
bar. Custom might go elsewhither, Mr. Williams 


THE GILBERTS 283 


might profit as he pleased, but Tom had had 
enough of bar-keeping for that day. Indeed the 
event had hung on a hair. A man had sought to 
draw a revolver —on what quarrel I could never 
learn, and perhaps he himself could not have told; 
one shot, when the room was so crowded, could 
scarce have failed to take effect; where many were 
armed and all tipsy, it could scarce have failed 
to draw others; and the woman who spied the 
weapon and the man who seized it may very well 
have saved the white community. 

The mob insensibly melted from the scene; and 
for the rest of the day our neighbourhood was left 
in peace and a good deal in solitude. But the tran- 
quillity was only local; “ din” and “ perandi ” still 
flowed in other quarters ; and we had one more sight 
of Gilbert Island violence. In the church, where we 
had wandered photographing, we were startled by 
a sudden piercing outcry. The scene, looking forth 
from the doors of that great hall of shadow, was 
unforgettable. The palms, the quaint and scat- 
tered houses, the flag of the island streaming from 
its tall staff, glowed with intolerable sunshine. In 
the midst two women rolled fighting on the grass. 
The combatants were the more easy to be distin- 
guished, because the one was stripped to the ridt 
and the other wore a holoku (sacque) of some lively 
colour. The first was uppermost, her teeth locked 
in her adversary’s face, shaking her like a dog; 
the other impotently fought and scratched. So for 
a moment we saw them wallow and grapple there 
like vermin; then the mob closed and shut them in. 


284 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


It was a serious question that night if we should 
sleep ashore. But we were travellers, folk that had 
come far in quest of the adventurous; on the first 
sign of an adventure it would have been a singular 
inconsistency to have withdrawn; and we sent on 
board instead for our revolvers. Mindful of Taa- 
hauku, Mr. Rick, Mr. Osbourne, and Mrs. Steven- 
son held an assault of arms on the public highway, 
and fired at bottles to the admiration of the natives. 
Captain Reid of the Equator stayed on shore with 
us to be at hand in case of trouble, and we retired 
to bed at the accustomed hour, agreeably excited 
by the day’s events. The night was exquisite, the 
silence enchanting; yet as I lay in my hammock 
looking on the strong moonshine and the quiescent 
palms, one ugly picture haunted me of the two 
women, the naked and the clad, locked in that 
hostile embrace. The harm done was probably not 
much, yet I could have looked on death and mas- 
sacre with less revolt. The return to these prime- 
val weapons, the vision of man’s beastliness, of his 
ferality, shocked in me a deeper sense than that 
with which we count the cost of battles. There are 
elements in our state and history which it is a 
pleasure to forget, which it is perhaps the better 
wisdom not to dwell on. Crime, pestilence, and 
death are in the day’s work; the imagination 
readily accepts them. It instinctively rejects, on 
the contrary, whatever shall call up the image of 
our race upon its lowest terms, as the partner of 
beasts, beastly itself, dwelling pell-mell and hugger- 
mugger, hairy man with hairy woman, in the caves 


THE GILBERTS 285 


of old. And yet to be just to barbarous islanders 
we must not forget the slums and dens of our 
cities: I must not forget that I have passed dinner- 
ward through Soho, and seen that which cured me 
of my dinner. 


CHAPTER V 


A TALE OF A TAPU — continued 


7 ce July 16.—It rained in the 
night, sudden and loud, in Gilbert Island 
fashion. Before the day, the crowing of 
a cock aroused me and I wandered in the com- 
pound and along the street. The squall was blown 
by, the moon shone with incomparable lustre, the 
air lay dead as in a room, and yet all the isle 
sounded as under a strong shower, the eaves thickly 
pattering, the lofty palms dripping at larger inter- 
vals and with a louder note. In this bold nocturnal 
light the interior of the houses lay inscrutable, one 
lump of blackness, save when the moon glinted 
under the roof, and made a belt of silver, and 
drew the slanting shadows of the pillars on the 
floor. Nowhere in all the town was any lamp or 
ember; not a creature stirred; I thought I was 
alone to be awake; but the police were faithful to 
their duty; secretly vigilant, keeping account of 
time; and a little later, the watchman struck slowly 
and repeatedly on the cathedral bell; four o’clock, 
the warning signal. It seemed strange that, in a 
- town resigned to drunkenness and tumult, curfew 
and reveille should still be sounded and still obeyed. 


THE GILBERTS 287 


The day came, and brought little change. The 
place still lay silent; the people slept, the town 
slept. Even the few who were awake, mostly 
women and children, held their peace and kept 
within under the strong shadow of the thatch, 
where you must stop and peer to see them. 
Through the deserted streets, and past the sleeping 
houses, a deputation took its way at an early hour 
to the palace; the king was suddenly awakened, 
and must listen (probably with a headache) to 
unpalatable truths. Mrs. Rick, being a sufficient 
mistress of that difficult tongue, was spokeswoman ; 
she explained to the sick monarch that I was an 
intimate personal friend of Queen Victoria’s; that 
immediately on my return I should make her a 
report upon Butaritari; and that if my house should 
have been again invaded by natives, a man-of-war 
would be despatched to make reprisals. It was 
scarce the fact — rather a just and necessary par- 
able of the fact, corrected for latitude; and it cer- 
tainly told upon the king. He was much affected; 
he had conceived the notion (he said) that I was a 
man of some importance, but not dreamed it was 
as bad as this; and the missionary house was 
tapu’d under a fine of fifty dollars. 

So much was announced on the return of the 
deputation; not any more; and I gathered sub- 
sequently that much more had passed. The protec- 
tion gained was welcome. It had been the most 
annoying and not the least alarming feature of the 
day before, that our house was periodically filled 
with tipsy natives, twenty or thirty at a time, 


288 IN i THE SOU THesres 


begging drink, fingering our goods, hard to be dis- 
lodged, awkward to quarrel with. Queen Victoria’s 
friend (who was soon promoted to be her son) 
was free from these intrusions. Not only my 
house, but my neighbourhood as well, was left in 
peace; even on our walks abroad we were guarded 
and prepared for; and, like great persons visiting 
a hospital, saw only the fair side. For the matter 
of a week we were thus suffered to go out and 
in and live in a fool’s paradise, supposing the king 
to have kept his word, the tapu to be revived and 
the island once more sober. 

Tuesday, July 23.— We dined under a bare 
trellis erected for the Fourth of July; and here 
we used to linger by lamplight over coffee and 
tobacco. In that climate evening approaches with- 
out sensible chill; the wind dies out before sunset; 
heaven glows awhile and fades, and darkens into 
the blueness of the tropical night; swiftly and in- 
sensibly the shadows thicken, the stars multiply 
their number; you look around you and the day 
is gone. It was then that we would see our China- 
man draw near across the compound in a lurch- 
ing sphere of light, divided by his shadows; and 
with the coming of the lamp the night closed about 
the table. The faces of the company, the spars of 
the trellis, stood out suddenly bright on a ground 
of blue and silver, faintly designed with palm-tops 
and the peaked roofs of houses. Here and there 
the gloss upon a leaf, or the fracture of a stone, 
returned an isolated sparkle. All else had van- 
ished. We hung there, illuminated like a galaxy 


THE GILBERTS 289 


of stars im vacuo; we sat, manifest and blind, amid 
the general ambush of the darkness; and the 
islanders, passing with light footfalls and low 
voices in the sand of the road, lingered to observe 
us, unseen. 

On Tuesday the dusk had fallen, the lamp had 
just been brought, when a missile struck the table 
with a rattling smack and rebounded past my ear. 
Three inches to one side and this page had never 
been written; for the thing travelled like a cannon 
ball. It was supposed at the time to be a nut, 
though even at the time I thought it seemed a 
small one and fell strangely. 

Wednesday, July 24.— The dusk had fallen once 
more, and the lamp been just brought out, when the 
same business was repeated. And again the missile 
whistled past my ear. One nut I had been willing 
to accept; a second, I rejected utterly. A cocoa- 
nut does not come slinging along on a windless 
evening, making an angle of about fifteen degrees 
with the horizon; cocoa-nuts do not fall on suc- 
cessive nights at the same hour and spot; in both 
cases, besides, a specific moment seemed to have 
been chosen, that when the lamp was just carried 
out, a specific person threatened, and that the head 
of the family. I may have been right or wrong, 
but I believed I was the mark of some intimida- 
tion; believed the missile was a stone, aimed not 
to hit, but to frighten. 

No idea makes a man more angry. I ran into 
the road, where the natives were as usual prom- 
enading in the dark; Maka joined me with a 

19 


2900 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


lantern; and I ran from one to another, glared 
in quite innocent faces, put useless questions, and 
proffered idle threats. Thence I carried my wrath 
(which was worthy the son of any queen in his- 
tory) to the Ricks. They heard me with depres- 
sion, assured me this trick of throwing a stone 
into a family dinner was not new; that it meant 
mischief, and was of a piece with the alarming 
disposition of the natives. And then the truth, so 
long concealed from us, came out. The king had 
broken his promise, he had defied the deputation; 
the tapu was still dormant, The Land we Live im 
still selling drink, and that quarter of the town 
disturbed and menaced by perpetual broils. But 
there was worse ahead: a feast was now preparing 
for the birthday of the little princess; and the 
tributary chiefs of Kuma and Little Makin were 
expected daily. Strong in a following of numerous 
and somewhat savage clansmen, each of these was 
believed, like a Douglas of old, to be of doubtful 
loyalty. Kuma (a little pot-bellied fellow) never 
visited the palace, never entered the town, but sat 
on the beach on a mat, his gun across his knees, 
parading his mistrust and scorn; Karaiti of Makin, 
although he was more bold, was not supposed to 
be more friendly; and not only were these vassals 
jealous of the throne, but the followers on either 
side shared in the animosity. Brawls had already 
taken place; blows had passed which might at any 
moment be repaid in blood. Some of the strangers 
were already here and already drinking; if the 
debauch continued after the bulk of them had 


THE GILBERTS 291 


come, a collision, perhaps a revolution, was to be 
expected. 

The sale of drink is in this group a measure of 
the jealousy of traders; one begins, the others are 
constrained to follow; and to him who has the 
most gin, and sells it the most recklessly, the lion’s 
share of copra is assured. It is felt by all to be 
an extreme expedient, neither safe, decent, nor 
dignified. A trader on Tarawa, heated by an 
eager rivalry, brought many cases of gin. He 
told me he sat afterwards day and night in his 
house till it was finished, not daring to arrest the 
sale, not venturing to go forth, the bush all round 
him filled with howling drunkards. At night, 
above all, when he was afraid to sleep, and heard 
shots and voices about him in the darkness, his 
remorse was black. 

“My God!” he reflected, “if I was to lose my 
life on such a wretched business!” Often and 
often, in the story of the Gilberts, this scene has 
been repeated; and the remorseful trader sat be- 
side his lamp, longing for the day, listening with 
agony for the sound of murder, registering resolu- 
tions for the future. For the business is easy to 
begin, but hazardous to stop. The natives are in 
their way a just and law-abiding people, mindful 
of their debts, docile to the voice of their own 
institutions; when the tapu is re-enforced they will 
cease drinking; but the white who seeks to ante- 
date the movement by refusing liquor does so at 
his peril. 

Hence, in some degree, the anxiety and help- 


292) (UN Pb HE pSiO:0 Tah s ae 


lessness of Mr. Rick. He and Tom, alarmed by the 
rabblement of the Sans Souci, had stopped the sale; 
they had done so without danger, because The 
Land we Live m still continued selling; it was 
claimed, besides, that they had been the first to 
begin. What step could be taken? Could Mr. 
Rick visit Mr. Muller (with whom he was not 
on terms) and address him thus: “I was getting 
ahead of you, now you are getting ahead of me, 
and I ask you to forego your profit. I got my 
place closed in safety, thanks to your continuing; 
but now I think you have continued long enough. 
I begin to be alarmed; and because I am afraid I 
ask you to confront a certain danger’? It was 
not to be thought of. Something else had to be 
found; and there was one person at one end of 
the town who was at least not interested in copra. 
There was little else to be said in favour of myself 
as an ambassador, I had arrived in the Wightman 
schooner, I was living in the Wightman compound, 
I was the daily associate of the Wightman coterie. 
It was egregious enough that I should now in- 
trude unasked in the private affairs of Crawford’s 
agent, and press upon him the sacrifice of his 
interests and the venture of his life. But bad 
as I might be, there was none better; since the 
affair of the stone I was, besides, sharp-set to 
be doing, the idea of a delicate interview at- 
tracted me, and I thought it policy to show myself 
abroad. | 

The night was very dark. There was service in 
the church, and the building glimmered through 


foee GIEB ERTS 293 


all its crevices like a dim Kirk Allowa’. I saw few 
other lights, but was indistinctly aware of many 
people stirring in the darkness, and a hum and 
sputter of low talk that sounded stealthy. I be- 
lieve (in the old phrase) my beard was sometimes 
on my shoulder as I went. Muller’s was but partly 
lighted, and quite silent, and the gate was fastened. 
I could by no means manage to undo the latch. No 
wonder, since I found it afterwards to be four or 
five feet long — a fortification in itself. As I still 
fumbled, a dog came on the inside and snuffed 
suspiciously at my hands, so that I was reduced 
to calling, ““House ahoy!” Mr. Muller came down 
and put his chin across the paling in the dark. 
“Who is that?” said he, like one who has no 
mind to welcome strangers. 

“My name is Stevenson,” said I. 

“O, Mr. Stevens! I didn’t know you. Come 
inside.” 

We stepped into the dark store, when I leaned 
upon the counter and he against the wall. All the 
light came from the sleeping-room, where I saw 
his family being put to bed; it struck full in my 
face, but Mr. Muller stood in shadow. No doubt 
he expected what was coming, and sought the ad- 
vantage of position; but for a man who wished 
to persuade and had nothing to conceal, mine was 
the preferable. 

“Look here,” I began, “I hear you are selling 
to the natives.” 

** Others have done that before me,” he returned 
pointedly. 


294 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


“No doubt,” said I, “and I have nothing to 
do with the past, but the future. I want you to 
promise you will handle these spirits carefully.” 

“Now what is your motive in this?” he asked, 
and then, with a sneer, “ Are you afraid of your 
lifes’ 

“That is nothing to the purpose,’ I replied. 
“I know, and you know, these spirits ought not 
to be used at all.” 

“Tom and Mr. Rick have sold them before.’’ 

“T have nothing to do with Tom and Mr. Rick. 
All I know is I have heard them both refuse.” 

““No, I suppose you have nothing to do with 
them. ‘Then you are just afraid of your life.” 

“Come now,” I cried, being perhaps a little 
stung, “you know in your heart I am asking a 
reasonable thing. I don’t ask you to lose your 
profit— though I would prefer to see no spirits 
brought here, as you would sa 

“T don’t say I would n’t. I didn’t begin this,” 
he interjected. 

“No, I don’t suppose you did,” said I. “ And 
I don’t ask you to lose; I ask you to give me your 
word, man to man, that you will make no native 
drunk.” 

Up to now Mr. Muller had maintained an atti- 
tude very trying to my temper; but he had main- 
tained it with difficulty, his sentiment being all 
upon my side; and here he changed ground for 
the worse. ‘It isn’t me that sells,” said he. 

“No, it’s that nigger,’ I agreed. ‘“‘ But he’s 
yours to buy and sell; you have your hand on the 





THE GILBERTS 295 


nape of his neck; and I ask you—-I have my 
wife here —to use the authority you have.” 

He hastily returned to his old ward. ‘I don’t 
deny I could if I wanted,” said he. “ But there’s 
no danger, the natives are all quiet. You’re just 
afraid of your life.” 

I do not like to be called a coward, even by 
implication; and here I lost my temper and pro- 
pounded an untimely ultimatum. ‘ You had better 
put it plain,’ I cried. ‘Do you mean to refuse 
me what I ask?” 

“T don’t want either to refuse it or grant it,” he 
replied. 

“You ’ll find you have to do the one thing or 
the other, and right now!” I cried, and then, strik- 
ing into a happier vein, “ Come,” said I, “ you ’r¢ 
a better sort than that. I see what’s wrong with 
you — you think I came from the opposite camp 
I see the sort of man you are, and you know that 
what I ask is right.” 

Again he changed ground. “If the natives 
get any drink, it isn’t safe to stop them,’ he 
objected. 

“IT ’ll be answerable for the bar,” I said. “‘ We 
are three men and four revolvers; well come at 
a word, and hold the place against the village.” 

“You don’t know what you’re talking about; 
it’s too dangerous!” he cried. 

“Look here,” said I, “I don’t mind much about 
losing that life you talk so much of; but I] mean 
to lose it the way I want to, and that is, putting a 
stop to all this beastliness.”’ 


2°96 IN(THE (SOUTH: SEAS 


He talked awhile about his duty to the firm; I 
minded not at all, I was secure of victory. He was 
but waiting to capitulate, and looked about for any 
potent to relieve the strain. In the gush of light 
from the bedroom door I spied a cigar-holder on 
the desk. ‘“‘ That is well coloured,” said I. 

“ Will you take a cigar?”’ said he. 

I took it and held it up unlighted. “ Now,” 
said I, “ you promise me.” 

“‘T promise you you won’t have any trouble from 
natives that have drunk at my place,” he replied. 

“That is all I ask,” said I, and showed it was 
not by immediately offering to try his stock. 

So far as it was anyway critical our interview 
here ended. Mr. Muller had thenceforth ceased to 
regard me as an emissary from his rivals, dropped 
his defensive attitude, and spoke as he believed. I 
could make out that he would already, had he 
dared, have stopped the sale himself. Not quite 
daring, it may be imagined how he resented the 
idea of interference from those who had (by his 
own statement) first led him on, then deserted 
him in the breach, and now (sitting themselves in 
safety) egged him on to a new peril, which was 
all gain to them, all loss to him. I asked him what 
he thought of the danger from the feast. 

“TI think worse of it than any of you,” he 
answered. “ They were shooting around here last 
night, and I heard the balls too. I said to myself, 
‘That ’s bad.’ What gets me is why you should 
be making this row up at your end. I should be 
the first to go.” 


THE GILBERTS 297 


It was a thoughtless wonder. The consolation 
of being second is not great; the fact, not the 
order of going — there was our concern. 

Scott talks moderately of looking forward to a 
time of fighting “with a feeling that resembled 
pleasure.” The resemblance seems rather an iden- 
tity. In modern life, contact is ended; man grows 
impatient of endless manceuvres; and to approach 
the fact, to find ourselves where we can push our 
advantage home, and stand a fair risk, and see at 
last what we are made of, stirs the blood. It was 
so at least with all my family, who bubbled with 
delight at the approach of trouble; and we sat 
deep into the night like a pack of school-boys, pre- 
paring the revolvers and arranging plans against 
the morrow. It promised certainly to be a busy 
and eventful day. The Old Men were 'to be sum- 
moned to confront me on the question of the tapu; 
Muller might call us at any moment to garrison 
his bar; and suppose Muller to fail, we decided 
in a family council to take that matter into our 
own hands, The Land we Live in at the pistol’s 
mouth, and with the polysyllabic Williams, dance 
to a new tune. As I recall our humour, I think 
it would have gone hard with the mulatto. 

Wednesday, July 24.—It was as well, and 
yet it was disappointing that these thunder-clouds 
rolled off in silence. Whether the Old Men re- 
coiled from an interview with Queen Victoria’s 
son, whether Muller had secretly intervened, or 
whether the step flowed naturally from the fears 
of the king and the nearness of the feast, the tapu 


298 VIN GI’H E SS.0°0 Toit sass 


was early that morning re-enforced; not a day 
too soon, from the manner the boats began to 
arrive thickly, and the town was filled with the 
big rowdy vassals of Karaiti. 

The effect lingered for some time on the minds 
of the traders; it was with the approval of all 
present that I helped to draw up a petition to the 
United States, praying for a law against the liquor 
trade in the Gilberts; and it was at this request 
that I added, under my own name, a brief testi- 
mony of what had passed;— useless pains; since 
the whole reposes, probably unread and possibly 
unopened, in a pigeon-hole at Washington. 

Sunday, July 28.— This day we had the after- 
piece of the debauch. The king and queen, in 
European clothes, and followed by armed guards, 
attended church for the first time, and sat perched 
aloft in a precarious dignity under the barrel- 
hoops. Before sermon his majesty clambered from 
the dais, stood lopsidedly upon the gravel floor, and 
in a few words abjured drinking. The queen fol- 
lowed suit with a yet briefer allocution. All the 
men in church were next addressed in turn; each 
held up his right hand, and the affair was over — 
throne and church were reconciled. 


CHAPTER VI 


THE FIVE DAYS’ FESTIVAL 


7 oe July 25th. — The street was 
. this day much enlivened by the pres- 
ence of the men from Little Makin; they 
average taller than Butaritarians, and, being on a 
holiday, went wreathed with yellow leaves and gor- 
geous in vivid colours. They are said to be more 
savage, and to be proud of the distinction. In- 
deed, it seemed to us they swaggered in the town, 
like plaided Highlanders upon the streets of Inver- 
ness, conscious of barbaric virtues. 

In the afternoon the summer parlour was ob- 
served to be packed with people; others standing 
outside and stooping to peer under the eaves, like 
children at home about a circus. It was the Makin 
company, rehearsing for the day of competition. 
Karaiti sat in the front row close to the singers, 
where we were summoned (I suppose in honour 
of Queen Victoria) to join him, A strong breath- 
less heat reigned under the iron roof, and the air 
was heavy with the scent of wreaths. The singers, 
with fine mats about their loins, cocoa-nut feathers 
set in rings upon their fingers, and their heads 
crowned with yellow leaves, sat on the floor by 


goo INS PH E*SOU THis ras 


companies. A varying number of soloists stood 
up for different songs; and these bore the chief 
part in the music. But the full force of the com- 
panies, even when not singing, contributed con- 
tinuously to the effect, and marked the ictus of the 
measure, mimicking, grimacing, casting up their 
heads and eyes, fluttering the feathers on their fin- 
gers, clapping hands, or beating (loud as a kettle- 
drum) on the left breast; the time was exquisite, 
the music barbarous, but full of conscious art. I 
noted some devices constantly employed. A sud- 
den change would be introduced (I think of key) 
with no break of the measure, but emphasised by 
a sudden dramatic heightening of the voice and a 
Swinging, general gesticulation. The voices of the 
soloists would begin far apart in a rude discord, 
and gradually draw together to a unison; which, 
when they had reached, they were joined and 
drowned by the full chorus. The ordinary, hur- 
ried, barking, unmelodious movement of the voices 
would at times be broken and glorified by a psalm+ 
like strain of melody, often well constructed, or 
seeming so by contrast. There was much variety 
of measure, and towards the end of each piece, 
when the fun became fast and furious, a recourse 
to this figure — 


21S Du did | eee 


It is difficult to conceive what fire and devilry they 
get into these hammering finales; all go together, 
voices, hands, eyes, leaves, and fluttering finger- 


THE GIUBERTS 301 


rings; the chorus swings to the eye, the song throbs 
on the ear; the faces are convulsed with enthusiasm 
and effort. 

Presently the troop stood up in a body, the 
drums forming a half-circle for the soloists, who 
were sometimes five or even more in number. The 
songs that followed were highly dramatic; though 
I had none to give me any explanation, I would at 
times make out some shadowy but decisive outline 
of a plot; and I was continually reminded of cer- 
tain quarrelsome concerted scenes in grand operas 
at home; just so the single voices issue from and 
fall again into the general volume; just so do the 
performers separate and crowd together, brandish 
the raised hand, and roll the eye to heaven — or 
the gallery. Already this is beyond the Thespian 
model; the art of this people is already past the 
embryo; song, dance, drums, quartette and solo 
—it is the drama full developed although still in 
miniature. Of all so-called dancing in the South 
Seas, that which I saw in Butaritari stands easily 
the first. The hula, as it may be viewed by the 
speedy globe-trotter in Honolulu, is surely the most 
dull of man’s inventions, and the spectator yawns 
under its length as at a college lecture or a par- 
liamentary debate. But the Gilbert Island dance 
leads on the mind; it thrills, rouses, subjugates; 
it has the essence of all art, an unexplored immi- 
nent significance. Where so many are engaged, 
and where all must make (at a given moment) 
the same swift, elaborate, and often arbitrary 
movement, the toil of rehearsal is of course ex- 


302 \IN GLH EvSOU ise 


treme. But they begin as children. A child and 
a man may often be seen together in a maniap’: 
the man sings and gesticulates, the child stands 
before him with streaming tears and tremulously 
copies him in act and sound; it is the Gilbert 
Island artist learning (as all artists must) his art 
in sorrow. 

I may seem to praise too much; here is a pas- 
sage from my wife’s diary, which proves that I was 
not alone in being moved, and completes the pic- 
ture: — “‘ The conductor gave the cue, and all the 
dancers, waving their arms, swaying their bodies, 
and clapping their breasts in perfect time, opened 
with an introductory. The performers remained 
seated, except two, and once three, and twice a 
single soloist. These stood in the group, making 
a slight movement with the feet and rhythmical 
quiver of the body as they sang. There was a 
pause after the introductory, and then the real busi- 
ness of the opera — for it was no less — began; 
an opera where every singer was an accomplished 
actor. The leading man, in an impassioned ecstasy 
which possessed him from head to foot, seemed 
transfigured; once it was as though a strong wind 
had swept over the stage — their arms, their feath- 
ered fingers thrilling with an emotion that shook 
my nerves as well: heads and bodies followed like 
a field of grain before a gust. My blood came hot 
and cold, tears pricked my eyes, my head whirled, 
I felt an almost irresistible impulse to join the 
dancers. One drama, I think, I very nearly under- 
stood. A fierce and savage old man took the solo 


THE GILBERTS 303 


part. He sang of the birth of a prince, and how 
he was tenderly rocked in his mother’s arms; of 
his boyhood, when he excelled his fellows in swim- 
ming, climbing, and all athletic sports; of his 
youth, when he went out to sea with his boat and 
fished; of his manhood, when he married a wife 
who cradled a son of his own in her arms. Then 
came the alarm of war, and a great battle, of which 
for a time the issue was doubtful; but the hero 
conquered, as he always does, and with a tremen- 
dous burst of the victors the piece closed. There 
were also comic pieces, which caused great amuse- 
ment. During one, an old man behind me clutched 
me by the arm, shook his finger in my face with a 
roguish smile, and said something with a chuckle, 
which I took to be the equivalent of ‘O, you 
women, you women; it is true of you all!’ I fear 
it was not complimentary. At no time was there 
the least sign of the ugly indecency of the Eastern 
islands. All was poetry pure and simple. The 
music itself was as complex as our own, though 
constructed on an entirely different basis; once or 
twice I was startled by a bit of something very 
like the best of English sacred music, but it was 
only for an instant. At last there was a longer 
pause, and this time the dancers were all on their 
feet. As the drama went on the interest grew. 
The performers appealed to each other, to the audi- 
ence, to the heaven above; they took counsel with 
each other, the conspirators drew together in a 
knot; it was just an opera, the drums coming in at 
proper intervals, the tenor, baritone, and bass all 


304 IN THE SOBA SEAS 


where they should be — except'that the voices were 
all of the same calibre. A woman once sang from 
the back row with a very fine contralto voice spoilt 
by being made artificially nasal; I notice all the 
women affect that unpleasantness. At one time a 
boy of angelic beauty was the soloist; and at an- 
other, a child of six or eight, doubtless an infant 
phenomenon being trained, was placed in the 
centre. The little fellow was desperately fright- 
ened and embarrassed at first, but towards the 
close warmed up to his work and showed much 
dramatic talent. The changing expressions on the 
faces of the dancers were so speaking, that it 
seemed a great stupidity not to understand them.” 

Our neighbour at this performance, Karaiti, 
somewhat favours his Butaritarian majesty in 
shape and feature, being like him portly, bearded, 
and Oriental. In character he seems the reverse: 
alert, smiling, jovial, jocular, industrious. At 
home in his own island, he labours himself like a 
slave, and makes his people labour like a slave- 
driver. He takes an interest in ideas. George the 
trader told him about flying-machines. “Is that 
true, George?” he asked. “It is in the papers,” 
replied George. ‘“ Well,’ said Karaiti, “if that 
man can do it with machinery, I can do it with- 
out’; and he designed and made a pair of wings, 
strapped them on his shoulders, went to the end of 
a pier, launched himself into space, and fell bulkily 
into the sea. His wives fished him out, for his 
wings hindered him in swimming. “ George,” said — 
he, pausing as he went up to change, “ George, you 


THE GILBERTS 305 


lie.’ He had eight wives, for his small realm still 
follows ancient customs; but he showed embar- 
rassment when this was mentioned to my wife. 
“Tell her I have only brought one here,’ he said 
anxiously. Altogether the Black Douglas pleased 
us much; and as we heard fresh details of the 
_king’s uneasiness, and saw for ourselves that all the 
weapons in the summer parlour had been hid, we 
watched with the more admiration the cause of all 
this anxiety rolling on his big legs, with his big 
smiling face, apparently unarmed, and certainly un- 
attended, through the hostile town. The Red 
Douglas, pot-bellied Kuma, having perhaps heard 
word of the debauch, remained upon his fief; his 
vassals thus came uncommanded to the feast, and 
swelled the following of Karaiti. 

Friday, July 26.— At night in the dark, the 
singers of Makin paraded in the road before our 
house and sang the song of the princess. “ This is 
the day; she was born to-day; Nei Kamaunava 
was born to-day —a beautiful princess, Queen of 
Butaritari.” So I was told it went in endless itera- 
tion. The song was of course out of season, and 
the performance only a rehearsal. But it was a 
serenade besides; a delicate attention to ourselves 
from our new friend, Karaiti. 

Saturday, July 27. —- We had announced a per- 
formance of the magic lantern to-night in church; 
and this brought the king to visit us. In honour 
of the Black Douglas (I suppose) his usual two 
guardsmen were now increased to four; and the 
squad made an outlandish figure as they straggled 

20 


306 INS“ LHE SOU PHiVstas 


after him, in straw hats, kilts, and jackets. Three 
carried their arms reversed, the butts over their 
shoulders, the muzzles menacing the king’s plump 
back; the fourth had passed his weapon behind his 
neck, and held it there with arms extended like a 
blackboard. The visit was extraordinarily long. 
The king, no longer galvanised with gin, said and 
did nothing. He sat collapsed in a chair and let a 
cigar go out. It was hot, it was sleepy, it was cruel 
dull; there was no resource but to spy in the coun- 
tenance of Tebureimoa for some remaining trait 
of Mr. Corpse the butcher. His hawk nose, crudely 
depressed and flattened at the point, did truly 
seem to us to smell of midnight murder. When 
he took his leave, Maka bade me observe him going’ 
down the stair (or rather ladder) from the ve- 
randa:’ “Old man?” said’ Maka: ~“*Yes)> sane 
“and yet I suppose not old man.” “ Young man,” 
returned Maka, “perhaps fo’ty.” And I have 
heard since he is most likely younger. 

While the magic lantern was showing, I skulked 
without in the dark. The voice of Maka, excitedly 
explaining the Scripture slides, seemed to fill not 
the church only, but the neighbourhood. All else 
was silent. Presently a distant sound of singing 
arose and approached; and a procession drew near 
along the road, the hot clean smell of the men and 
women striking in my face delightfully. At the 
corner, arrested by the voice of Maka and the light- 
ening and darkening of the church, they paused. 
They had no mind to go nearer, that was plain. 
They were Makin people, I believe, probably 


THE GILBERTS 307 


staunch heathens, contemners of the missionary 
and his works. Of a sudden, however, a man 
broke from their company, took to his heels, and 
fled into the church; next moment three had fol- 
lowed him; the next it was a covey of near upon 
a score, all pelting for their lives. So the little 
band of the heathen paused irresolute at the corner, 
and melted before the attractions of a magic lan- 
tern, like a glacier in spring. The more staunch 
vainly taunted the deserters; three fled in a guilty 
silence, but still fled; and when at length the 
leader found the wit or the authority to get his 
troop in motion and revive the singing, it was 
with much diminished forces that they passed musi- 
cally on up the dark road. 

Meanwhile inside the luminous pictures bright- 
ened and faded. I stood for some while unob- 
served in the rear of the spectators, when I could 
hear just in front of me a pair of lovers following 
the show with interest, the male playing the part 
of interpreter and (like Adam) mingling caresses 
with his lecture. The wild animals, a tiger in par- 
ticular, and that old school-treat favourite, the 
sleeper and the mouse, were hailed with joy; but 
the chief marvel and delight was in the gospel se- 
ries. Maka, in the opinion of his aggrieved wife, 
did not properly rise to the occasion. ‘‘ What is 
the matter with the man? Why can’t he talk?” 
she cried. The matter with the man, I think, was 
the greatness of the opportunity; he reeled under 
his good fortune; and whether he did ill or well, 
the exposure of these pious “ phantoms” did as a 


308 OLN THES OU Dh siae 


matter of fact silence in all that part of the island 
the voice of the scoffer. ‘“‘ Why then,” the word 
went round, “ why then, the Bible is true!” And 
on our return afterwards we were told the im- 
pression was yet lively, and those who had seen 
might be heard telling those who had not, “O yes, 
it is all true; these things all happened, we have 
seen the pictures.” The argument is not so child- 
ish as it seems; for I doubt if these islanders are 
acquainted with any other mode of representation 
but photography; so that the picture of an event 
(on the old melodrama principle that “ the camera 
cannot lie, Joseph,’’) would appear strong proof 
of its occurrence. The fact amused us the more 
because our slides were some of them ludicrously 
silly, and one (Christ before Pilate) was received 
with shouts of merriment, in which even Maka 
was constrained to join. 

Sunday, July 28.— Karaiti came to ask for a 
repetition of the “ phantoms ”’ — this was the ac- 
cepted word —and, having received a promise, 
turned and left my humble roof without the 
shadow of a salutation. I felt it impolitic to have 
the least appearance of pocketing a slight; the 
times have been too difficult, and were still too 
doubtful; and Queen Victoria’s son was bound to 
maintain the honour of his house. Karaiti was ac- 
cordingly summoned that evening to the Ricks, 
where Mrs. Rick fell foul of him in words, and 
Queen Victoria’s son assailed him with indignant 
looks. J was the ass with the lion’s skin; I could 
not roar in the language of the Gilbert Islands; 


THE GILBERTS 309 


but I could stare. Karaiti declared he had meant 
no offence; apologised in a sound, hearty, gentle- 
manly manner; and became at once at his ease. 
He had in a dagger to examine, and announced he 
would come to price it on the morrow, to-day being 
Sunday; this nicety in a heathen with eight wives 
surprised me. The dagger was “ good for killing 
fish,” he said roguishly; and was supposed to have 
his eye upon fish upon two legs. It is at least odd 
that in Eastern Polynesia fish was the accepted 
euphemism for the human sacrifice. Asked as to 
the population of his island, Karaiti called out to 
his vassals who sat waiting him outside the door, 
and they put it at four hundred and fifty; but 
(added Karaiti jovially) there will soon be plenty 
more, for all the women are in the family way. 
Long before we separated I had quite forgotten 
his offence. He, however, still bore it in mind; 
and with a very courteous inspiration returned 
early on the next day, paid us a long visit, and 
punctiliously said farewell when he departed. 

Monday, July 29. — The great day came round 
at last. In the first hours the night was startled by 
the sound of clapping hands and the chant of Nei 
Kamaunava; its melancholy, slow, and somewhat 
menacing measures broken at intervals by a for- 
midable shout. The little morsel of humanity thus 
celebrated in the dark hours was observed at mid- 
day playing on the green entirely naked, and 
equally unobserved and unconcerned. 

The summer parlour on its artificial islet, re- 
lieved against the shimmering lagoon, and shim- 


31i0 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


mering itself with sun and tinned iron, was all 
day crowded about by eager men and women. 
Within, it was boxed full of islanders, of any age 
and size, and in every degree of nudity and finery. 
So close we squatted, that at one time I had a 
mighty handsome woman on my knees, two little 
naked urchins having their feet against my back. 
There might be a dame in full attire of holoku 
and hat and flowers; and her next neighbour 
might the next moment strip some little rag of 
a shift from her fat shoulders and come out a 
monument of flesh, painted rather than covered 
by the hairbreadth ridi. Little ladies who thought 
themselves too great to appear undraped upon so 
high a festival were seen to pause outside in the 
broad sunshine, their miniature ridis in their hand; 
a moment more and they were full-dressed and 
entered the concert-room. 

At either end stood up to sing, or sat down to 
rest, the alternate companies of singers; Kuma 
and Little Makin on the north, Butaritari and its 
conjunct hamlets to the south; both groups con- 
spicuous in barbaric bravery. In the midst, be- 
tween these rival camps of troubadours, a bench 
was placed; and here the king and queen throned 
it, some two or three feet above the crowded audi- 
ence on the floor— Tebureimoa as usual in his 
striped pajamas with a satchel strapped across one 
shoulder, doubtless (in the island fashion) to con- 
tain his pistols; the queen in a purple holoku, her 
abundant hair let down, a fan in her hand. The 
bench was turned facing to the strangers, a piece 


THE GILBERTS 311 


of well-considered civility; and when it was the 
turn of Butaritari to sing, the pair must twist 
round on the bench, lean their elbows on the rail, 
and turn to us the spectacle of their broad backs. 
The royal couple occasionally solaced themselves 
with a clay pipe; and the pomp of state was further 
heightened by the rifles of a picket of the guard. 
With this kingly countenance, and ourselves 
squatted on the ground, we heard several songs 
from one side or the other. Then royalty and its 
guards withdrew, and Queen Victoria’s son and 
daughter-in-law were summoned by acclamation to 
the vacant throne. Our pride was perhaps a little 
modified when we were joined on our high places 
by a certain thriftless loafer of a white; and yet I 
was glad too, for the man had a smattering of 
native, and could give me some idea of the sub- 
ject of the songs. One was patriotic, and dared 
Tembinok’ of Apemama, the terror of the group, 
to an invasion. One mixed the planting of taro 
and the harvest-home. Some were historical, and 
commemorated kings and the illustrious chances of 
their time, such as a bout of drinking or a war. 
One, at least, was a drama of domestic interest, 
excellently played by the troop from Makin. It 
told the story of a man who has lost his wife, at 
first bewails her loss, then seeks another: the 
earlier strains (or acts) are played exclusively by, 
men; but towards the end a woman appears, who 
has just lost her husband; and I suppose the pair 
console each other, for the finale seemed of happy, 
omen. Of some of the songs my informant told me 


g72 LN DE: SOW Tine ieee 


briefly they were “like about the weemen”’; this 
I could have guessed myself. Each side (I should 
have said) was strengthened by one or two women. 
They were all soloists, did not very often join in 
the performance, but stood disengaged at the back 
part of the stage, and looked (in ridz, necklace, and 
dressed hair) for all the world like European ballet- 
dancers. When the song was anyway broad these 
ladies came particularly to the front; and it was 
singular to see that, after each entry, the premiére 
danseuse pretended to be overcome by shame, as 
though led on beyond what she had meant, and her 
male assistants made a feint of driving her away 
like one who had disgraced herself. Similar affec- 
tations accompany certain truly obscene dances of 
Samoa, where they are very well in place. Here it 
was different. The words, perhaps, in this free- 
spoken world, were gross enough to make a carter 
blush; and the most suggestive feature was this 
feint of shame. For such parts the women showed 
some disposition ;. they were pert, they were neat, 
they were acrobatic, they were at times really 
amusing, and some of them were pretty. But this 
is not the artist’s field; there is the whole width of 
heaven between such capering and ogling, and the 
strange rhythmic gestures, and strange, rapturous, 
frenzied faces with which the best of the male 
dancers held us spellbound through a Gilbert 
Island ballet. 

Almost from the first it was apparent that the 
people of the city were defeated. I might have 
thought them even good, only I had the other troop 


THE GILBERTS 313 


before my eyes to correct my standard, and re- 
mind me continually of “ the little more, and how 
much it is.’ Perceiving themselves worsted, the 
choir of Butaritari grew confused, blundered, and 
broke down; amid this hubbub of unfamiliar inter- 
vals I should not myself have recognised the slip, 
but the audience were quick to catch it, and to jeer. 
To crown all, the Makin company began a dance 
of truly superlative merit. I know not what it was 
about, I was too much absorbed to ask. In one act 
a part of the chorus, squealing in some strange 
falsetto, produced very much the effect of our 
orchestra; in another, the dancers, leaping like 
jumping-jacks, with arms extended, passed through 
and through each other’s ranks with extraordi- 
nary speed, neatness, and humour. A more laugh- 
able effect I never saw; in any European theatre 
it would have brought the house down, and the 
island audience roared with laughter and ap- 
plause. This filled up the measure for the rival 
company, and they forgot themselves and decency. 
After each act or figure of the ballet, the perform- 
ers pause a moment standing, and the next is 
introduced by the clapping of hands and triplets. 
Not until the end of the whole ballet do they sit 
down, which is the signal for the rivals to stand up. 
But now all rules were to be broken. During the 
interval following on this great applause, the com- 
pany of Butaritari leaped suddenly to their feet 
and most unhandsomely began a performance of 
their own. It was strange to see the men of Makin 
staring; I have seen a tenor in Europe stare with 


314. IN>o THE SOU RH Seas 


the same blank dignity into a hissing theatre; but 
presently, to my surprise, they sobered down, gave 
up the unsung remainder of their ballet, resumed 
their seats, and suffered their ungallant adversa- 
ries to go on and finish. Nothing would suffice. 
Again, at the first interval, Butaritari unhand- 
somely cut in; Makin, irritated in turn, followed 
the example; and the two companies of dancers 
remained permanently standing, continuously clap- 
ping hands, and regularly cutting across each other 
at each pause. I expected blows to begin with any 
moment; and our position in the midst was highly 
unstrategical. But the Makin people had a better 
thought; and upon a fresh interruption turned and 
trooped out of the house. We followed them, first 
because these were the artists, second because they 
were guests and had been scurvily ill-used. A large 
population of our neighbours did the same, so 
that the causeway was filled from end to end by 
the procession of deserters; and the Butaritari 
choir was left to sing for its own pleasure in an 
empty house, having gained the point and lost the 
audience. It was surely fortunate that there was 
no one drunk; but, drunk or sober, where else 
would a scene so irritating have concluded without 
blows? 

The last stage and glory of this auspicious day 
was of our own providing — the second and posi- 
tively the last appearance of the “ phantoms.” All 
round the church, groups sat outside, in the night, 
where they could see nothing; perhaps ashamed to 
enter, certainly finding some shadowy pleasure in 


THE GILBERTS 315 


the mere proximity. Within, about one-half of the 
great shed was densely packed with people. In the 
midst, on the royal dais, the lantern luminously 
smoked; chance rays of light struck out the earnest 
countenance of our Chinaman grinding the hand- 
organ; a fainter glimmer showed off the rafters 
and their shadows in the hollow of the roof; the 
pictures shone and vanished on the screen; and as 
each appeared, there would run a hush, a whisper, 
a strong shuddering rustle, and a chorus of small 
cries among the crowd. There sat by me the mate 
of a wrecked schooner. “ They would think this 
a strange sight in Europe or the States,” said he, 
“ going on in a building like this, all tied with bits 
of string.” 


CHAPTER VII 


HUSBAND AND WIFE 


HE trader accustomed to the manners of 

Eastern Polynesia has a lesson to learn 

among the Gilberts. The ridi is but a 
spare attire; as late as thirty years back the women 
went naked until marriage; within ten years the 
custom lingered; and these facts, above all when 
heard in description, conveyed a very false idea 
of the manners of the group. A very intelligent 
missionary described it (in its former state) as 
a “‘paradise of naked women” for the resident 
whites. It was at least a platonic paradise, where 
Lothario ventured at his peril. Since 1860, four- 
teen whites have perished on a single island, all 
for the same cause, all found where they had no 
business, and speared by some indignant father of 
a family; the figure was given me by one of their 
contemporaries who had been more prudent and 
survived. The strange persistence of these four- 
teen martyrs might seem to point to monomania or 
a series of romantic passions; gin is the more likely 
key. The poor buzzards sat alone in their houses 
by an open case; they drank; their brain was 
fired; they stumbled towards the nearest houses on 


THE GILBERTS 317 


chance; and the dart went through their liver. In 
place of a paradise the trader found an archipelago 
of fierce husbands and of virtuous women. “ Of 
course if you wish to make love to them, it’s the 
same as anywhere else,’ observed a trader inno- 
cently; but he and his companions rarely so 
choose. 

The trader must be credited with a virtue: he 
often makes a kind and loyal husband. Some of 
the worst beachcombers in the Pacific, some of the 
last of the old school, have fallen in my path, and 
some of them were admirable to their native wives, 
and one made a despairing widower. The position 
of a trader’s wife in the Gilberts is, besides, un- 
usually enviable. She shares the immunities of her 
husband. Curfew in Butaritari sounds for her in 
vain. Long after the bell is rung and the great 
island ladies are confined for the night to their own 
roof, this chartered libertine may scamper and 
giggle through the deserted streets or go down to 
bathe in the dark. The resources of the store are 
at her hand; she goes arrayed like a queen, and 
feasts delicately every day upon tinned meats. And 
she who was perhaps of no regard or station among 
natives sits with captains, and is entertained on 
board of schooners. Five of these privileged dames 
were some time our neighbours. Four were hand- 
some skittish lasses, gamesome like children, and 
like children liable to fits of pouting. They wore 
dresses by day, but there was a tendency after dark 
to strip these lendings and to career and squall 
about the compound in the aboriginal ridi. Games 


318 IN THE!) SOW. heise 


of cards were continually played, with shells for 
counters; their course was much marred by cheat- 
ing; and the end of a round (above all if a man 
was of the party) resolved itself into a scrimmage 
for the counters. The fifth was a matron. It was 
a picture to see her sail to church on a Sunday, a 
parasol in hand, a nurse-maid following, and the 
baby buried in a trade hat and armed with a patent 
feeding-bottle. The service was enlivened by her 
continual supervision and correction of the maid. 
It was impossible not to fancy that the baby was 
a doll, and the church some European playroom. 
All these women were legitimately married. It is 
true that the certificate of one, when she proudly 
showed it, proved to run thus, that she was “ mar- 
ried for one night,”’ and her gracious partner was 
at liberty to “send her to hell” the next morning; 
but she was none the wiser or the worse for the 
dastardly trick. Another, I heard, was married 
pn a work of mine in a pirated edition; it answered 
the purpose as well as a Hall Bible. Notwithstand- 
ing all these allurements of social distinction, rare 
food and raiment, a comparative vacation from toil, 
a legitimate marriage contracted on a pirated edi- 
tion, the trader must sometimes seek long before 
he can be mated. While I was in the group one 
had been eight months on the quest, and he was 
still a bachelor. 

Within strictly native society the old laws and 
practices were harsh, but not without a certain 
stamp of high-mindedness. Stealthy adultery was 
punished with death; open elopement was properly 


THE GILBERTS 319 


considered virtue in comparison, and compounded 
for a fine in land. The male adulterer alone seems 
to have been punished. It is correct manners for 
a jealous man to hang himself; a jealous woman 
has a different remedy — she bites her rival. Ten 
or twenty years ago it was a capital offence to raise 
a woman’s ridi; to this day it is still punished with 
- a heavy fine; and the garment itself is still sym- 
bolically sacred. Suppose a piece of land to be 
disputed in Butaritari, the claimant who shall 
first hang a ridi on the tapu-post has gained his 
cause, since no one can remove or touch it but 
himself. 

The ridi was the badge not of the woman but the 
wife, the mark not of her sex but of her station. 
It was the collar on the slave’s neck, the brand 
on merchandise. The adulterous woman seems to 
have been spared; were the husband offended, it 
_ would be a poor consolation to send his draught 
cattle to the shambles. Karaiti, to this day, calls 
his eight wives “his horses,” some trader having 
explained to him the employment of these animals 
on farms; and Nanteitei hired out his wives to do 
mason-work. Husbands, at least when of high 
rank, had the power of life and death; even whites 
seem to have possessed it; and their wives, when 
they had transgressed beyond forgiveness, made 
haste to pronounce the formula of deprecation — 
I Kana Kim. This form of words had so much 
virtue that a condemned criminal, repeating it on a 
particular day to the king who had condemned him, 
must be instantly released. It is an offer of abase- 


3200 IN|, THE SOUTH SEAS 


ment, and, strangely enough, the reverse — the 
imitation — is a common vulgar insult in Great 
Britain to this day. I give a scene between a 
trader and his Gilbert Island wife, as it. was told 
me by the husband, now one of the oldest residents, 
but then a freshman in the group. 

“Go and light a fire,’ said the trader, “and 
when I have brought this oil I will cook some 
fish.” 

The woman grunted at him, island fashion. 

“T am not a pig that you should grunt at me,” 
said he. 

“IT know you are not a pig,” said the woman, 
“neither am I your slave.” 

“To be sure you are not my slave, and if you do 
not care to stop with me, you had better go home 
to your people,” said he. “ But in the meantime 
go and light the fire; and when I have brought 
this oil I will cook some fish.” 

She went as if to obey; and presently when the 
trader looked she had built a fire so big that the 
cook-house was catching in flames. 

“IT Kana Kim!” she cried, as she saw him com- 
ing; but he recked not, and hit her with a cooking- 
pot. The leg pierced her skull, blood spouted, it 
was thought she was a dead woman, and the natives 
surrounded the house in a menacing expectation. 
Another white was present, a man of older experi- 
ence. “ You will have us both killed if you go on 
like this,” he cried. “‘ She had said J Kana Kim!” 
If she had not said 1 Kana Kim he might have 
struck her with a caldron. It was not the blow 


Veh: GiB ERTS Za 


that made the crime, but the disregard of an ac- 
cepted formula. 

Polygamy, the particular sacredness of wives, 
their semi-servile state, their seclusion in kings’ 
harems, even their privilege of biting, all would 
seem to indicate a Mohammedan society and the 
opinion of the soullessness of woman. And not so 
in the least. It is a mere appearance. After you 
have studied these extremes in one house, you may 
go to the next and find all reversed, the woman the 
mistress, the man only the first of her thralls. The 
authority is not with the husband as such, nor the 
wife as such. It resides in the chief or the chief- 
woman; in him or her who has inherited the lands 
of the clan, and stands to the clansmen in the place 
of parent, exacting their service, answerable for 
their fines. There is but the one source of power 
and the one ground of dignity — rank. The king 
married a chief-woman; she became his menial, 
and must work with her hands on Messrs. Wight- 
man’s pier. The king divorced her; she regained 
at once her former state and power. She married 
the Hawaiian sailor, and behold the man is her 
flunkey and’'can be shown the door at pleasure. 
Nay, and such low-born lords are even corrected 
physically, and, like grown but dutiful children, 
must endure the discipline. 

We were intimate in one such household, that of 
Nei Takauti and Nan Tok’; I put the lady first 
of necessity. During one week of fool’s paradise, 
Mrs. Stevenson had gone alone to the sea-side of 
the island after shells. I am very sure the pro- 

2r 


322 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


ceeding was unsafe; and she soon perceived a man 
and woman watching her. Do what she would, her 
guardians held her steadily in view; and when the 
afternoon began to fall, and they thought she had 
stayed long enough, took her in charge, and by 
signs and broken English ordered her home. On 
the way the lady drew from her earring-hole a clay 
pipe, the husband lighted it, and it was handed to 
my unfortunate wife, who knew not how to refuse 
the incommodious favour; and when they were all 
come to our house, the pair sat down beside her on 
the floor, and improved the occasion with prayer. 
From that day they were our family friends; 
bringing thrice a day the beautiful island garlands 
of white flowers, visiting us any evening, and fre- 
quently carrying us down to their own maniap’ in 
return, the woman leading Mrs. Stevenson by the 
hand like one child with another. 

Nan Tok’, the husband, was young, extremely 
handsome, of the most approved good-humour, and 
suffering in his precarious station from suppressed 
high spirits. Nei Takauti, the wife, was getting 
old; her grown son by a former marriage had just 
hanged himself before his mother’s eyes in despair 
at a well-merited rebuke. Perhaps she had never 
been beautiful, but her face was full of character, 
her eye of sombre fire. She was a high chief- 
woman, but by a strange exception for a person of 
her rank, was small, spare, and sinewy, with lean 
small hands and corded neck. Her full dress of 
an evening was invariably a white chemise — and 
for adornment, green leaves (or sometimes white 


THE GILBERTS 323 


blossoms) stuck in her hair and thrust through her 
huge earring-holes. The husband on the contrary 
changed to view like a kaleidoscope. Whatever 
pretty thing my wife might have given to Nei 
Takauti —a string of beads, a ribbon, a piece of 
bright fabric — appeared the next evening on the 
person of Nan Tok’. It was plain he was a clothes- 
horse; that he wore livery; that, in a word, he was 
his wife’s wife. They reversed the parts indeed, 
down to the least particular; it was the husband 
who showed himself the ministering angel in the 
hour of pain, while the wife displayed the apathy 
and heartlessness of the proverbial man. 

When Nei Takauti had a headache Nan Tok’ 
was full of attention and concern. When the hus- 
band had a cold and a racking toothache the wife 
heeded not, except to jeer. It is always the woman’s 
part to fill and light the pipe; Nei Takauti handed 
hers in silence to the wedded page; but she car- 
ried it herself, as though the page were not entirely 
trusted. Thus she kept the money, but it was he 
who ran the errands, anxiously sedulous. A cloud 
on her face dimmed instantly his beaming looks; 
on an early visit to their maniap’ my wife saw he 
had cause to be wary. Nan Tok’ had a friend with 
him, a giddy young thing, of his own age and sex; 
and they had worked themselves into that stage 
of jocularity when consequences are too often dis- 
regarded. Nei Takauti mentioned her own name. 
Instantly Nan Tok’ held up two fingers, his friend 
did likewise, both in an ecstasy of slyness. It was 
plain the lady had two names; and from the nature 


324 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


of their merriment, and the wrath that gathered 
on her brow, there must be something ticklish in 
the second. The husband pronounced it; a well- 
directed cocoa-nut from the hand of his wife caught 
him on the side of the head, and the voices and the 
mirth of these indiscreet young gentlemen ceased 
for the day. 

The people of Eastern Polynesia are never at a 
loss; their etiquette is absolute and plenary; in 
every circumstance it tells them what to do and 
how to do it. The Gilbertines are seemingly more 
free, and pay for their freedom (like ourselves) in 
frequent perplexity. This was often the case with 
the topsy-turvy couple. We had once supplied 
them during a visit with a pipe and tobacco; and 
when they had smoked and were about to leave, 
they found themselves confronted with a problem: 
should they take or leave what remained of the 
tobacco. The piece of plug was taken up, it was 
laid down again, it was handed back and forth, 
and argued over, till the wife began to look hag- 
gard and the husband elderly. They ended by 
taking it, and I wager were not yet clear of the 
compound before they were sure they had decided 
wrong. Another time they had been given each a 
liberal cup of coffee, and Nan Tok’ with difficulty 
and disaffection made an end of his. Nei Takauti 
had taken some, she had no mind for more, plainly 
conceived it would be a breach of manners to set 
down the cup unfinished, and ordered her wedded 
retainer to dispose of what was left. “ I have swal- 
lowed all I can, I cannot swallow more, it is a 


Pte Gl BE. RTS 325 


physical impossibility,’ he seemed to say; and his 
stern officer reiterated her commands with secret 
imperative signals. Luckless dog! but in mere 
humanity we came to the rescue and removed the 
cup. 

I cannot but smile over this funny household; 
yet I remember the good souls with affection and 
respect. Their attention to ourselves was surpris- 
ing. The garlands are much esteemed, the blos- 
soms must be sought far and wide; and though 
they had many retainers to call to their aid, we 
often saw themselves passing afield after the blos- 
soms, and the wife engaged with her own hands 
in putting them together. It was no want of heart, 
only that disregard so incident to husbands, that 
made Nei Takauti despise the sufferings of Nan 
Tok’. When my wife was unwell she proved a 
diligent and kindly nurse; and the pair, to the 
extreme embarrassment of the sufferer, became fix- 
tures in the sick-room. This rugged, capable, im- 
perious old dame, with the wild eyes, had deep and 
tender qualities: her pride in her young husband 
it seemed that she dissembled, fearing possibly to 
spoil him; and when she spoke of her dead son 
there came something tragic in her face. But I 
seemed to trace in the Gilbertines a virility of sense 
and sentiment which distinguishes them (like their 
harsh and uncouth language) from their brother 
islanders in the east. 






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PART IV: THE GILBERTS— 
APEMAMA 





PART IV: THE GILBERTS— 
APEMAMA 


CHAPTER I 


THE KING OF APEMAMA: THE ROYAL 
TRADER 


OP tes: is one great personage in the Gil- 
berts: Tembinok’ of Apemama: solely 
conspicuous, the hero of song, the butt of 
gossip. Through the rest of the group the kings 
are slain or fallen in tutelage: Tembinok’ alone 
- remains, the last tyrant, the last erect vestige of a 
dead society. The white man is everywhere else, 
building his houses, drinking his gin, getting in and 
out of trouble with the weak native governments. 
There is only one white on Apemama, and he on 
sufferance, living far from court, and hearkening 
and watching his conduct like a mouse in a cat’s ear. 
Through all the other islands a stream of native 
visitors comes and goes, travelling by families, 
spending years on the grand tour. Apemama alone 
is left upon one side, the tourist dreading to risk 
himself within the clutch of Tembinok’. And fear 
of the same Gorgon follows and troubles them at 
home. Maiana once paid him tribute; he once fell 


330 IN THE SOU DAS tae 


upon and seized Nonuti: first steps to the empire 
of the archipelago. A British warship coming on 
the scene, the conqueror was driven to disgorge, his 
career checked in the outset, his dear-bought ar- 
moury sunk in his own lagoon. But the impression . 
had been made; periodical fear of him still shakes 
the islands; rumour depicts him mustering his 
canoes for a fresh onfall; rumour can name his 
destination; and Tembinok’ figures in the patriotic 
war-songs of the Gilberts like Napoleon in those 
of our grandfathers. 

We were at sea, bound from Mariki to Nonuti 
and Tapituea, when the wind came suddenly fair 
for Apemama. The course was at once changed; 
all hands were turned-to to clean ship, the decks 
holystoned, the cabin washed, the trade-room over- 
hauled. In all our cruising we never saw the 
Equator so smart as she was made for Tembinok’. 
Nor was Captain Reid alone in these coquetries; 
for, another schooner chancing to arrive during my 
stay in Apemama, I found that she also was dan- 
dified for the occasion. And the two cases stand 
alone in my experience of South Sea traders. 

We had on board a family of native tourists, 
from the grandsire to the babe in arms, trying 
(against an extraordinary series of ill-luck) to 
regain their native island of Peru.! Five times 
already they had paid their fare and taken ship; 
five times they had been disappointed, dropped 
penniless upon strange islands, or carried back to 
Butaritari, whence they sailed. This last attempt 


1 In the Gilbert group. 


APEMAMA 331 


had been no better starred; their provisions were 
exhausted. Peru was beyond hope, and they had 
cheerfully made up their minds to a fresh stage of 
exile in Tapituea or Nonuti. With this slant of 
wind their random destination became once more 
changed; and like the Calender’s pilot, when the 
“black mountains’ hove in view, they changed 
colour and beat upon their breasts. Their camp, 
which was on deck in the ship’s waist, resounded 
with complaint. They would be set to work, they 
must become slaves, escape was hopeless, they 
must live and toil and die in Apemama, in the 
tyrant’s den. With this sort of talk they so greatly 
terrified their children, that one (a big hulking boy) 
must at last be torn screaming from the schooner’s 
side. And their fears were wholly groundless. I 
have little doubt they were not suffered to be idle; 
but I can vouch for it that they were kindly and 
generously used. For, the matter of a year later, 
I was once more shipmate with these inconsistent 
wanderers on board the Janet Nicoll. Their fare 
was paid by Tembinok’; they who had gone 
ashore from the Equator destitute, reappeared upon 
the Janet with new clothes, laden with mats and 
presents, and bringing with them a magazine of 
food, on which they lived like fighting cocks 
throughout the voyage; I saw them at length 
repatriated, and I must say they showed more con- 
cern on quitting Apemama than delight at reaching 
home. 

We entered by the north passage (Sunday, Sep- 
tember Ist), dodging among shoals. It was a day 


332 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


of fierce equatorial sunshine; but the breeze was 
strong and chill; and the mate, who conned the 
schooner from the cross-trees, returned shivering 
to the deck. The lagoon was thick with many- 
tinted wavelets; a continuous roaring of the outer 
sea overhung the anchorage; and the long, hollow 
crescent of palm ruffled and sparkled in the wind. 
Opposite our berth the beach was seen to be sur- 
mounted for some distance by a terrace of white 
coral, seven or eight feet high and crowned in turn 
by the scattered and incongruous buildings of the 
palace. The village adjoins on the south, a cluster 
of high-roofed maniap’s. And village and palace 
seemed deserted. 

We were scarce yet moored, however, before 
distant and busy figures appeared upon the beach, 
a boat was launched, and a crew pulled out to us 
bringing the king’s ladder. Tembinok’ had once 
an accident; has feared ever since to intrust his per- 
son to the rotten chandlery of South Sea traders; 
and devised in consequence a frame of wood, which 
is brought on board a ship as soon as she appears, 
and remains lashed to her side until she leaves. 
The boat’s crew, having applied this engine, re- 
turned at once to shore. They might not come on 
board; neither might we land, or not without 
danger of offence; the king giving pratique in 
person. An interval followed, during which dinner 
was delayed for the great man; the prelude of 
the ladder, giving us some notion of his weighty 
body and sensible, ingenious character, had highly 
whetted our curiosity; and it was with something 


APEMAMA 394 


like excitement that we saw the beach and terrace 
suddenly blacken with attendant vassals, the king 
and party embark, the boat (a man-of-war) come 
flying towards us dead before the wind, and the 
royal coxswain lay us cleverly aboard, mount 
the ladder with a jealous diffidence, and descend 
heavily on deck. 

Not long ago he was overgrown with fat, ob- 
scured to view, and a burthen to himself. Captains 
visiting the island advised him to walk; and though 
it broke the habits of a life and the traditions of 
his rank, he practised the remedy with benefit. His 
corpulence is now portable; you would call him 
lusty rather than fat; but his gait is still dull, 
stumbling, and elephantine. He neither stops nor 
hastens, but goes about his business with an impla- 
cable deliberation. We could never see him and 
not be struck with his extraordinary natural means 
for the theatre: a beaked profile like Dante’s in the 
mask, a mane of long black hair, the eye brilliant, 
imperious, and inquiring: for certain parts, and to 
one who could have used it, the face was a fortune. 
His voice matched it well, being shrill, powerful, 
and uncanny, with a note like a sea-bird’s. Where 
there are no fashions, none to set them, few to fol- 
low them if they were set, and none to criticise, he 
dresses —as Sir Charles Grandison lived — “ to 
his own heart.” Now he wears a woman’s frock, 
now a naval uniform; now (and more usually) 
figures in a masquerade costume of his own design: 
trousers and a singular jacket with shirt tails, the 
cut and fit wonderful for island workmanship, the 


334 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


material always handsome, sometimes green velvet, 
sometimes cardinal red silk. This masquerade be- 
comes him admirably. In the woman’s frock he 
looks ominous and weird beyond belief. I see 
him now come pacing towards me in the cruel 
sun, solitary, a figure out of Hoffmann. 

A visit on board ship, such as that at which we 
now assisted, makes a chief part and by far the 
chief diversion of the life of Tembinok’. He is 
not only the sole ruler, he is the sole merchant 
of his triple kingdom, Apemama, Aranuka, and 
Kuria, well-planted islands. The taro goes to the 
chiefs, who divide as they please among their im- 
mediate adherents; but certain fish, turtles — which 
abound in Kuria — and the whole produce of the 
cocoa-palm, belong exclusively to Tembinok’. ‘A’ 
cobra‘ berong me,” observed his majesty with a 
wave of his hand; and he counts and sells it by 
the houseful. “ You got copra, king?” I have 
heard a trader ask. ‘I got two, three outches,” ? 
his majesty. replied: “I think three.” Hence the 
commercial importance of Apemama, the trade of 
three islands being centred there in a single hand; 
hence it is that so many whites have tried in vain 
to gain or to preserve a footing; hence ships are 
adorned, cooks have special orders, and captains 
array themselves in smiles, to greet the king. If he 
be pleased with his welcome and the fare he may 
pass days on board, and every day, and sometimes 


1 Copra: the dried kernel of the cocoa-nut, the chief article of 
commerce throughout the Pacific Islands. 
2 Houses. 


APEMAMA 335 


every hour, will be of profit to the ship. He oscil- 
lates between the cabin, where he is entertained 
with strange meats, and the trade-room, where he 
enjoys the pleasures of shopping on a scale to match 
his person. A few obsequious attendants squat by 
the house door, awaiting his least signal. In the 
boat, which has been suffered to drop astern, one or 
two of his wives lie covered from the sun under 
mats, tossed by the short sea of the lagoon, and 
enduring agonies of heat and tedium. This severity 
is now and then relaxed and the wives allowed on 
board. Three or four were thus favoured on the 
day of our arrival: substantial ladies airily attired 
in ridis. Each had a share of copra, her pecu- 
lium, to dispose of for herself. The display in the 
trade-room — hats, ribbons, dresses, scents, tins of 
salmon — the pride of the eye and the lust of the 
flesh — tempted them in vain. They had but the 
one idea—tobacco, the island currency, tanta- 
mount to minted gold; returned to shore with it, 
burthened but rejoicing; and late into the night, 
on the royal terrace, were to be seen counting the 
sticks by lamplight in the open air. 

The king is no such economist. He is greedy 
of things new and foreign. House after house, 
chest after chest, in the palace precinct, is already 
crammed with clocks, musical boxes, blue spectacles, 
umbrellas, knitted waistcoats, bolts of stuff, tools, 
rifles, fowling-pieces, medicines, European foods, 
sewing-machines, and, what is more extraordinary, 
stoves: all that ever caught his eye, tickled his appe- 
tite, pleased him for its use, or puzzled him with its 


336 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


apparent inutility. And still his lust is unabated. 
He is possessed by the seven devils of the collector. 
He hears a thing spoken of, and a shadow comes on 
his face. “I think I no got him,” he will say; and 
the treasures he has seem worthless in comparison. 
If a ship be bound for Apemama, the merchant 
racks his brain to hit upon some novelty. This he 
leaves carelessly in the main cabin or partly con- 
ceals in his own berth, so that the king shall spy 
it for himself. “ How much you want?” in- 
quires Tembinok’, passing and pointing. “ No, 
king; that too dear,’ returns the trader. “TI 
think I like him,” says the king. This was a bowl 
of gold-fish. On another occasion it was scented 
soap. “‘ No, king; that cost too much,” said the 
trader; “too good for a Kanaka.”’ ‘“ How much 
you got? I take him all,” replied his majesty, and 
became the lord of seventeen boxes at two dollars 
acake. Or again, the merchant feigns the article is 
not for sale, is private property, an heirloom or a 
gift; and the trick infallibly succeeds. Thwart the 
king and you hold him. His autocratic nature 
rears at the affront of opposition. He accepts it 
for a challenge; sets his teeth like a hunter 
going at a fence; and with no mark of emo- 
tion, scarce even of interest, stolidly piles up the 
price. Thus, for our sins, he took a fancy to my 
wife’s dressing-bag, a thing entirely useless to the 
man, and sadly battered by years of service. Early 
one forenoon he came to our house, sat down, and 
abruptly offered to purchase it. I told him I sold 
nothing, and the bag at any rate was a present from 


APEMAMA 337 


a friend; but he was acquainted with these pretexts 
from of old, and knew what they were worth and 
how to meet them. Adopting what I believe is 
called “the object method,” he drew out a bag 
of English gold, sovereigns and _ half-sovereigns, 
and began to lay them one by one in silence on 
the table; at each fresh piece reading our faces 
with a look. In vain I continued to protest I was 
no trader; he deigned not to reply. There must 
have been twenty pounds on the table, he was still 
going on, and irritation had begun to mingle with 
our embarrassment, when a happy idea came to our 
delivery. Since his majesty thought so much of the 
bag, we said, we must beg him to accept it as a 
present. It was the most surprising turn in Tem- 
binok’s experience. He perceived too late that his 
persistence was unmannerly; hung his head awhile 
in silence: then, lifting up a sheepish countenance, 
“I ’shamed,” said the tyrant. It was the first and 
the last time we heard him own to a flaw in his be- 
haviour. Half an hour after he sent us a camphor- 
wood chest, worth only a few dollars — but then 
heaven knows what Tembinok’ had paid for it. 
Cunning by nature, and versed for forty years 
in the government of men, it must not be supposed 
that he is cheated blindly, or has resigned himself 
without resistance to be the milch-cow of the passing 
trader. His efforts have been even heroic. Like 
Nakaeia of Makin, he has owned schooners. More 
fortunate than Nakaeia, he has found captains. 
Ships of his have sailed as far as to the colonies. 
He has trafficked direct, in his own bottoms, with 
22 


338 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


New Zealand. And even so, even there, the world- 
enveloping dishonesty of the white man prevented 
him; his profit melted, his ship returned in debt, 
the money for the insurance was embezzled, and 
when the Coronet came to be lost, he was aston- 
ished to find he had lost all. At this he dropped 
his weapons; owned he might as hopefully wrestle 
with the winds of heaven; and like an experienced 
sheep, submitted his fleece thenceforward to the 
shearers. He is the last man in the world to waste 
anger on the incurable; accepts it with cynical com- 
posure; asks no more in those he deals with than a 
certain decency of moderation; drives as good a 
bargain as he can; and when he considers he is 
more than usually swindled, writes it in his mem- 
ory against the merchant’s name. He once ran 
over to me a list of captains and supercargoes with 
whom he had done business, classing them under 
three heads: “He cheat a litty’’ — “ He cheat 
plenty ’’— and “I think he cheat too much.” 
For the first two classes he expressed perfect tol- 
eration; sometimes, but not always, for the third. 
I was present when a certain merchant was turned 
about his business, and was the means (having a 
considerable influence ever since the bag) of patch- 
ing up the dispute. Even on the day of our arrival 
there was like to have been a hitch with Captain 
Reid: the ground of which is perhaps worth recital. 
Among goods exported specially for Tembinok’ 
there is a beverage known (and labelled) as Hen- 
nessy’s brandy. It is neither Hennessy, nor even 
brandy; is about the colour of sherry, but is not 


APEMAMA 339 


sherry; tastes of kirsch, and yet neither is it kirsch. 
The king, at least, has grown used to this amazing 
brand, and rather prides himself upon the taste; and 
any substitution is a double offence, being at once 
to cheat him and to cast a doubt upon his palate. 
A similar weakness is to be observed in all connois- 
seurs. Now the last case sold by the Equator was 
found to contain a different and I would fondly 
fancy a superior distillation; and the conversation 
opened very black for Captain Reid. But Tem- 
binok’ is a moderate man. He was reminded and 
admitted that all men were liable to error, even him- 
self; accepted the principle that a fault handsomely 
acknowledged should be condoned; and wound 
the matter up with this proposal: “ Tuppoti? I 
mi’take, you ’peakee me. Tuppoti you mi’take, I 
*peakee you. Mo’betta.” 

After dinner and supper in the cabin, a glass or 
two of “ Hennetti ’’ — the genuine article this time, 
with the kirsch bouquet, — and five hours’ loung- 
ing on the trade-room counter, royalty embarked 
for home. Three tacks grounded the boat before 
the palace; the wives were carried ashore on the 
backs of vassals; Tembinok’ stepped on a railed 
platform like a steamer’s gangway, and was borne 
shoulder high through the shallows, up the beach, 
and by an inclined plane, paved with pebbles, to 
the glaring terrace where he dwells. 


1 Suppose. 


CHAPTER II 


THE KING OF APEMAMA: FOUNDATION 
OF EQUATOR TOWN 


UR first sight of Tembinok’ was a matter 
() of concern, almost alarm, to my whole 
party. We had a favour to seek; we 
must approach in the proper courtly attitude of a 
suitor; and must either please him or fail in the 
main purpose. of our voyage. It was our wish to 
land and live in Apemama, and see more near at 
hand the odd character of the man and the odd 
(or rather ancient) condition of his island. In 
all other isles of the South Seas a white man may 
land with his chest, and set up house for a lifetime, 
if he choose, and if he have the money or the trade; 
no hindrance is conceivable. But Apemama is a 
close island, lying there in the sea with closed doors; 
the king himself, like a vigilant officer, ready at 
the wicket to scrutinise and reject intrenching vis- 
itors. Hence the attraction of our enterprise; not 
merely because it was a little difficult, but because 
this social quarantine, a curiosity in itself, has been 
the preservative of others. 
Tembinok’, like most tyrants, is a conservative; 
like many conservatives, he eagerly welcomes new 


APEMAMA 341 


ideas, and, except in the field of politics, leans to 
practical reform. When the missionaries came, 
professing a knowledge of the truth, he readily 
received them; attended their worship, acquired the 
accomplishment of public prayer, and made him- 
self a student at their feet. It is thus —it is by 
the cultivation of similar passing chances — that he 
has learned to read, to write, to cipher, and to speak 
his queer, personal English, so different from ordi- 
nary “ Beach de Mar,’ so much more obscure, ex- 
pressive, and condensed. His education attended 
to, he found time to become critical of the new in- 
mates. Like Nakaeia of Makin, he is an admirer 
of silence in the island; broods over it like a great 
ear; has spies who report daily; and had rather 
his subjects sang than talked. The service, and in 
particular the sermon, were thus sure to become 
offences: “ Here, in my island, J ’peak,”’ he once 
observed to me. “ My chieps no ’peak — do what 
I talk.” He looked at the missionary, and what 
did he see? “ See Kanaka ’peak in a big outch!” 
he cried, with a strong ring of sarcasm. Yet he 
endured the subversive spectacle, and might even 
have continued to endure it, had not a fresh point 
arisen. He looked again, to employ his own figure; 
and the Kanaka was no longer speaking, he was 
doing worse — he was building a copra-house. The 
king was touched in his chief interests; revenue 
and prerogative were threatened. He considered 
besides (and some think with him) that trade is 
incompatible with the missionary claims. “ Tup- 
poti mitonary think ‘good man’: very good. 


942 IN ‘THE SOU Tabs ras 


Tuppoti he think ‘cobra’: no good. I send him 
away ship.” Such was his abrupt history of the 
evangelist in Apemama. 

Similar deportations are common: “I send him 
away ship” is the epitaph of not a few, his majesty 
paying the exile’s fare to the next place of call. 
For instance, being passionately fond of European 
food, he has several times added to his household 
a white cook, and one after another these have been 
deported. They, on their side, swear they were 
not paid their wages; he, on his, that they robbed 
and swindled him beyond endurance: both perhaps 
justly. A more important case was that of an 
agent, despatched (as I heard the story) by a firm 
of merchants to worm his way into the king’s good 
graces, become, if possible, premier, and handle 
the copra in the interest of his employers. He ob- 
tained authority to land, practised his fascinations, 
was patiently listened to by Tembinok’, supposed 
himself on the highway to success; and behold! 
when the next ship touched at Apemama, the would- 
be premier was flung into a boat — had on board 
—his fare paid, and so good-bye. But it is need- 
less to multiply examples; the proof of the pudding 
is in the eating. When we came to Apemama, of 
so many white men who have scrambled for a place 
in that rich market, one remained — a silent, sober, 
solitary, niggardly recluse, of whom the king re- 
marks, “I think he good; he no ’peak.” 

I was warned at the outset we might very well 
fail in our design; yet never dreamed of what 
proved to be the fact, that we should be left four- 


APEMAMA 343 


and-twenty hours in suspense and come within an 
ace of ultimate rejection. Captain Reid had primed 
himself; no sooner was the king on board, and the 
Hennetti question amicably settled, than he pro- 
ceeded to express my request and give an abstract 
of my claims and virtues. The gammon about 
Queen Victoria’s son might do for Butaritari; it 
was out of the question here; and I now figured as 
“one of the Old Men of England,” a person of deep 
knowledge, come expressly to visit Tembinok’s do- 
minion, and eager to report upon it to the no less 
eager Queen Victoria. The king made no shadow 
of an answer, and presently began upon a differ- 
ent subject. We might have thought he had not 
heard, or not understood; only that we found our- 
selves the subject of a constant study. As we sat 
at meals, he took us in series and fixed upon each, 
for near a minute at a time, the same hard and 
thoughtful stare. As he thus looked he seemed to 
forget himself, the subject and the company, and to 
become absorbed in the process of his thought; the 
look was wholly impersonal: I have seen the same 
in the eyes of portrait-painters. The counts upon 
which whites have been deported are mainly four: 
cheating Tembinok’, meddling overmuch with 
copra, which is the source of his wealth and one of 
the sinews of his power, ’peaking, and political in- 
trigue. I felt guiltless upon all; but how to show 
it? I would not have taken copra in a gift: how 
to express that quality by my dinner-table bearing? 
The rest of the party shared my innocence and my 
embarrassment. They shared also in my morti- 


344 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


fication when after two whole meal-times and the 
odd moments of an afternoon devoted to this re- 
connoitring, Tembinok’ took his leave in silence. 
Next morning, the same undisguised study, the 
same silence, was resumed; and the second day had 
come to its maturity before I was informed abruptly 
that I had stood the ordeal. “I look your eye. 
You good man. You zo lie,” said the king: a 
doubtful compliment to a writer of romance. Later 
he explained he did not quite judge by the eye only, 
but the mouth as well. “ Tuppoti I see man,” he 
explained. “I no tavvy good man, bad man. I 
look eye, look mouth. Then I tavvy. Look eye, 
look mouth,” he repeated. And indeed in our case 
the mouth had the most to do with it, and it was 
by our talk that we gained admission to the island ; 
the king promising himself (and I believe really 
amassing) a vast amount of useful knowledge ere 
we left. 

The terms of our admission were as follows: 
We were to choose a site, and the king should there 
build us a town. His people should work for us, 
but the king only was to give them orders. One of 
his cooks should come daily to help mine, and to 
learn of him. In case our stores ran out, he would 
supply us, and be repaid on the return of the Equa- 
tor. On the other hand, he was to come to meals 
with us when so inclined; when he stayed at home, 
a dish was to be sent him from our table; and I 
solemnly engaged to give his subjects no liquor 
or money (both of which they are forbidden to 
possess) and no tobacco, which they were to receive 


APEMAMA 345 


only from the royal hand. I think I remember to 
have protested against the stringency of this last 
article; at least, it was relaxed, and when a man 
worked for me I was allowed to give him a pipe 
of tobacco on the premises, but none to take away. 

The site of Equator City — we named our city 
for the schooner — was soon chosen. The immedi- 
ate shores of the lagoon are windy and blinding; 
Tembinok’ himself is glad to grope blue-spectacled 
on his terrace; and we fled the neighbourhood of 
the red conjunctiva, the suppurating eyeball, and 
the beggar who pursues and beseeches the pass- 
ing foreigner for eyewash. Behind the town the 
country is diversified; here open, sandy, uneven, 
and dotted with dwarfish palms; here cut up with 
taro trenches, deep and shallow, and, according 
to the growth of the plants, presenting now the 
appearance of a sandy tannery, now of an alleyed 
and green garden. A path leads towards the sea, 
mounting abruptly to the main level of the island 
— twenty or even thirty feet, although Findlay 
gives five; and just hard by the top of the rise, 
where the cocoa-palms begin to be well grown, we 
found a grove of pandanus, and a piece of soil 
pleasantly covered with green underbrush. A well 
was not far off under a rustic well-house; nearer 
still, in a sandy cup of the land, a pond where we 
might wash our clothes. The place was out of the 
wind, out of the sun, and out of sight of the village. 
It was shown to the king, and the town promised 
for the morrow. 

The morrow came. Mr. Osbourne landed, found 


346 IN THE SOG TH Saas 


nothing done, and carried his complaint to Tem- 
binok’. He heard it, rose, called for a Winchester, 
stepped without the royal palisade, and fired two 
shots in the air. A shot in the air is the first Ape- 
mama warning; it has the force of a proclamation 
in more loquacious countries; and his majesty 
remarked agreeably that it would make his labour- 
ers “ mo’ bright.’”’ In less than thirty minutes, ac- 
cordingly, the men had mustered, the work was 
begun, and we were told that we might bring our 
baggage when we pleased. 

It was two in the afternoon ere the first boat 
was beached, and the long procession of chests and 
crates and sacks began to straggle through the sandy 
desert towards Equator Town. The grove of pan- 
danus was practically a thing of the past. Fire 
surrounded and smoke rose in the green under- 
brush. In a wide circuit the axes were still crash- 
ing. Those very advantages for which the place 
was chosen, it had been the king’s first idea to 
abolish; and in the midst of this devastation there 
stood already a good-sized maniap’ and a small 
closed house. A mat was spread near by for Tem- 
binok’; here he sat superintending, in cardinal red, 
a pith helmet on his head, a meerschaum pipe in 
his mouth, a wife stretched at his back with cus- 
tody of the matches and tobacco. Twenty or thirty 
feet in front of him the bulk of the workers squat- 
ted on the ground; some of the bush here survived; 
and in this the commons sat nearly to their shoul- 
ders, and presented only an arc of brown faces, 
black heads, and attentive eyes fixed on his majesty. 


APEMAMA 347 


Long pauses reigned, during which the subjects 
stared and the king smoked. Then Tembinok’ 
would raise his voice and speak shrilly and briefly. 
There was never a response in words; but if the 
speech were jesting, there came by way of answer 
discreet, obsequious laughter — such laughter as 
we hear in schoolrooms; and if it were practical, 
the sudden uprising and departure of the squad. 
Twice they so disappeared, and returned with fur- 
ther elements of the city; a second house and a 
second maniap’. It was singular to spy, far off 
through the cocoa-stems, the silent oncoming of 
the maniap’, at first (it seemed) swimming spon- 
taneously in the air—but on a nearer view be- 
traying under the eaves many score of moving 
naked legs. In all the affair servile obedience was 
no less remarkable than servile deliberation., The 
gang had here mustered by the note of a deadly 
weapon; the man who looked on was the unques- 
tioned master of their lives; and except for civility, 
they bestirred themselves like so many American 
hotel clerks. The spectator was aware of an un- 
obtrusive yet invincible inertia, at which the skipper 
of a trading dandy might have torn his hair. 

Yet the work was accomplished. By dusk, when 
his majesty withdrew, the town was founded and 
complete, a new and ruder Amphion having called 
it from nothing with three cracks of a rifle. And 
the next morning the same conjuror obliged us with 
a further miracle: a mystic rampart fencing us, 
so that the path which ran by our doors became 
suddenly impassable, the inhabitants who had 


348 IN THE SOUTH SHAS 


business across the isle must fetch a wide circuit, 
and we sat in the midst in a transparent privacy, 
seeing, seen, but unapproachable, like bees in a glass 
hive. The outward and visible sign of this glamour 
was no more than a few ragged cocoa-leaf garlands 
round the stems of the outlying palms: but its 
significance reposed on the tremendous sanction of 
the tapu and the guns of Tembinok’. 

We made our first meal that night in the im- 
provised city, where we were to stay two months, 
and which —so soon as we had done with it — 
was to vanish in a day as it appeared, its elements 
returning whence they came, the tapu raised, the 
traffic on the path resumed, the sun and the moon 
peering in vain between the palm-trees for the by- 
gone work, the wind blowing over an empty site. 
Yet the place, which is now only an episode in some 
memories, seemed to have been built, and to be 
destined to endure, for years. It was a busy ham- 
let. One of the maniap’s we made our dining- 
room, one the kitchen. The houses we reserved 
for sleeping. They were on the admirable Ape- 
mama plan: out and away the best house in the 
South Seas; standing some three feet above the 
ground on posts; the sides of woven flaps, which 
can be raised to admit light and air, or lowered to 
shut out the wind and the rain: airy, healthy, 
clean, and water-tight. We had a hen of a remark- 
able kind: almost unique in my experience, being 
a hen that occasionally laid eggs. Not far off, Mrs. 
Stevenson tended a garden of salad and shalots. 
The salad was devoured by the hen — which was 


APEMAMA 349 


her bane. The shalots were served out a leaf at 
a time, and welcomed and relished like peaches. 
Toddy and green cocoa-nuts were brought us daily. 
We once had a present of fish from the king, and 
once of a turtle. Sometimes we shot so-called 
plover along on the shore, sometimes wild chicken 
in the bush. The rest of our diet was from tins. 

Our occupations were very various. While some 
of the party would be away sketching, Mr. Os- 
bourne and I hammered away at a novel. We read 
Gibbon and Carlyle aloud; we blew on flageolets, 
we strummed on guitars; we took photographs by 
the light of the sun, the moon, and flash-powder ; 
sometimes we played cards. Pot-hunting engaged 
a part of our leisure. I have myself passed after- 
noons in the exciting but innocuous pursuit of 
winged animals with a revolver; and it was for- 
tunate there were better shots of the party, and 
fortunate the king could lend us a more suitable 
weapon, in the form of an excellent fowling-piece, 
or our spare diet had been sparer still. 

Night was the time to see our city, after the 
moon was up, after the lamps were lighted, and so 
long as the fire sparkled in the cook-house. We 
suffered from a plague of flies and mosquitos, 
comparable to that of Egypt; our dinner-table 
(lent, like all our furniture, by the king) must be 
enclosed in a tent of netting, our citadel and ref- 
uge; and this became all luminous, and bulged 
and beaconed under the eaves, like the globe of 
some monstrous lamp under the margin of its 
shade. Our cabins, the sides being propped at a 


390 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


variety of inclinations, spelled out strange, angular 
patterns of brightness. In his roofed and open 
kitchen, Ah Fu was to be seen by lamp and fire- 
light, dabbling among pots. Over all, there fell 
in the season an extraordinary splendour of mel- 
low moonshine. The sand sparkled as with the 
dust of diamonds; the stars had vanished. At 
intervals, a dusky night-bird, slow and low flying, 
passed in the colonnade of the tree stems and ut- 
tered a hoarse croaking cry. 


CHAPTER III 


THE KING OF APEMAMA: THE PALACE 
OF MANY WOMEN 


HE palace, or rather the ground which it 
includes, is several acres in extent. A 
terrace encloses it toward the lagoon; on 

the side of the land, a palisade with several gates. 
These are scarce intended for defence; a man, if 
he were strong, might easily pluck down the pal- 
isade; he need not be specially active to leap from 
the beach upon the terrace. There is no parade 
of guards, soldiers, or weapons; the armoury is 
under lock and key; and the only sentinels are 
certain inconspicuous old women lurking day and 
night before the gates. By day, these crones were 
often engaged in boiling syrup or the like house- 
hold occupation; by night, they lay ambushed in 
the shadow or crouched along the palisade, filling 
the office of eunuchs to this harem, sole guards 
upon a tyrant life. 

Female wardens made a fit outpost for this 
palace of many women. Of the number of the 
king’s wives I have no guess; and but a loose 
idea of their function. He himself displayed em- 
barrassment when they were referred to as his 


352 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


wives, called them himself ‘“‘ my pamily,”’ and ex- 
plained they were his “ cutcheons ’’ — cousins. 
We distinguished four of the crowd: the king’s 
mother; his sister, a grave, trenchant woman, 
with much of her brother’s intelligence; the queen 
proper, to whom (and to whom alone) my wife 
was formally presented; and the favourite of the 
hour, a pretty, graceful girl, who sat with the 
king daily, and once (when he shed tears) con- 
soled him with caresses. I am assured that even 
with her his relations are platonic. In the back- 
ground figured a multitude of ladies, the lean, the 
plump, and the elephantine, some in sacque frocks, 
some in the hairbreadth ridi; high-born and low, 
slave and mistress; from the queen to the scullion, 
from the favourite to the scraggy sentries at the 
palisade. Not all of these of course are of “my 
pamily,” —-many are mere attendants; yet a sur- 
prising number shared the responsibility of the 
king’s trust. These were key-bearers, treasurers, 
wardens of the armoury, the napery, and the stores. 
Each knew and did her part to admiration. Should 
anything be required —a particular gun, perhaps, 
or a particular bolt of stuff, —the right queen 
was summoned; she came bringing the right chest, 
opened it in the king’s presence, and displayed her 
charge in perfect preservation — the gun cleaned 
and oiled, the goods duly folded. Without delay 
or haste, and with the minimum of speech, the 
whole great establishment turned on wheels like 
a machine. Nowhere have I seen order more 
complete and pervasive. And yet I was always 


APEMAMA 353 


reminded of Norse tales of trolls and ogres who 
kept their hearts buried in the ground for the mere 
safety, and must confide the secret to their wives. 
For these weapons are the life of Tembinok’. He 
does not aim at popularity; but drives and braves 
his subjects, with a simplicity of domination which 
it is impossible not to admire, hard not to sym- 
pathise with. Should one out of so many prove 
faithless, should the armoury be secretly unlocked, 
should the crones have dozed by the palisade and 
the weapons find their way unseen into the village, 
revolution would be nearly certain, death the most 
probable result, and the spirit of the tyrant of 
Apemama flit to rejoin his predecessors of Mariki 
and Tapituea. Yet those whom he so trusts are 
all women, and all rivals. 

There is indeed a ministry and staff of males: 
cook, steward, carpenter, and supercargoes: the 
hierarchy of a schooner. The spies, “ his majesty’s 
daily papers,’ as we called them, come every morn- 
ing to report, and go again. The cook and steward 
are concerned with the table only. The supercar- 
goes, whose business it is to keep tally of the copra 
at three pounds a month and a percentage, are 
rarely in the palace; and two at least are in the 
other islands. The carpenter, indeed, shrewd and 
jolly old Rubam— query, Reuben? — promoted 
on my last visit to the greater dignity of gov- 
ernor, is daily present, altering, extending, embel- 
lishing, pursuing the endless series of the king’s 
inventions; and his majesty will sometimes pass 
an afternoon watching and talking with Rubam 

23 


asa N oT Basi OrUst et See 


at his work. But the males are still outsiders; 
none seems to be armed, none is intrusted with 
a key; by dusk they are all usually departed from 
the palace; and the weight of the monarchy and 
of the monarch’s life reposes unshared on the 
women. 

Here is a household unlike, indeed, to one of 
ours; more unlike still to the Oriental harem: that 
of an elderly childless man, his days menaced, 
dwelling alone amid a bevy of women of all ages, 
ranks, and relationships, — the mother, the sister, 
the cousin, the legitimate wife, the concubine, the 
favourite, the eldest born, and she of yesterday; 
he, in their midst, the only master, the only male, 
the sole dispenser of honours, clothes, and lux- 
uries, the sole mark of multitudinous ambitions 
and desires. I doubt if you could find a man in 
Europe so bold as to attempt this piece of tact 
and government. And seemingly Tembinok’ him- 
self had trouble in the beginning. I hear of him 
shooting at a wife for some levity on board a 
schooner. Another, on some more serious offence, 
he slew outright; he exposed her body in an open 
box, and (to make the warning more memo- 
rable) suffered it to putrefy before the palace gate. 
Doubtless his growing years have come to his as- 
sistance; for upon so large a scale it is more easy 
to play the father than the husband. And to-day, 
at least to the eye of a stranger, all seems to go 
smoothly, and the wives to be proud of their trust, 
proud of their rank, and proud of their cunning 
lord. 


APEMAMA 355 


I conceived they made rather a hero of the man. 
A popular master in a girls’ school might, per- 
haps, offer a figure of his preponderating station. 
But then the master does not eat, sleep, live, and 
wash his dirty linen in the midst of his admirers; 
he escapes, he has a room of his own, he leads a 
private life; if he had nothing else, he has the 
holidays, and the more unhappy Tembinok’ is al- 
ways on the stage and,on the stretch. 

In all my coming and going, I never heard him 
speak harshly or express the least displeasure. An 
extreme, rather heavy, benignity — the benignity 
of one sure to be obeyed — marked his demeanour ; 
so that I was at times reminded of Samuel Richard- 
son in his circle of admiring women. The wives 
spoke up and seemed to volunteer opinions, like 
our wives at home —or, say, like doting but re- 
spectable aunts. Altogether, I conclude that he 
tules his seraglio much more by art than terror; 
and those who give a different account (and who 
have none of them enjoyed my opportunities of 
observation) perhaps failed to distinguish between 
degrees of rank, between “my pamily” and the 
hangers-on, laundresses, and prostitutes. | 

A notable feature is the evening game of cards; 
when lamps are set forth upon the terrace, and 
“T and my pamily” play for tobacco by the hour. 
It is highly characteristic of Tembinok’ that he 
must invent a game for himself; highly charac- 
teristic of his worshipping household that they 
should swear by the absurd invention. It is 
founded on poker, played with the honours out 


356 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


of many packs, and inconceivably dreary. But I 
have a passion for all games, studied it, and am 
supposed to be the only white who ever fairly 
grasped its principle: a fact for which the wives 
(with whom I was not otherwise popular) admired 
me with acclamation. It was impossible to be de- 
ceived; this was a genuine feeling: they were 
proud of their private game, had been cut to the 
quick by the want of interest shown in it by others, 
and expanded under the flattery of my attention. 
Tembinok’ puts up a double stake; and receives in 
turn two hands to choose from: a shallow artifice 
which the wives (in all these years) have not yet 
fathomed. He himself, when talking with me pri- 
vately, made not the least secret that he was secure 
of winning; and it was thus he explained his re- 
cent liberality on board the Equator. He let the 
wives buy their own tobacco, which pleased them 
at the moment. He won it back at cards, which 
made him once more, and without fresh expense, 
that which he ought to be, — the sole fount of all 
indulgences. And he summed the matter up in that 
phrase with which he almost always concludes any 
account of his policy: “‘ Mo’ betta.” 

The palace compound is laid with broken coral, 
excruciating to the eyes and the bare feet, but ex- 
quisitely raked and weeded. A score or more of 
buildings lie in a sort of street along the pal- 
isade and scattered on the margin of the terrace; 
dwelling-houses for the wives and the attendants, 
storehouses for the king’s curios and treasures, 
spacious maniap’s for feast or council, some on 


APEMAMA 357 


pillars of wood, some on piers of masonry. One 
was still in hand, a new invention, the king’s latest 
born: a European frame-house built for coolness 
inside a lofty maniap’: its roof planked like a 
ship’s deck to be a raised, shady, and yet private 
promenade. It was here the king spent hours with 
Rubam; here I would sometimes join them; the 
place had a most singular appearance; and I must 
say | was greatly taken with the fancy, and joined 
with relish in the counsels of the architects. 
Suppose we had business with his majesty by 
day: we strolled over the sand and by the dwarf- 
ish palms, exchanged a “ Kdénamaori” with the 
crone on duty, and entered the compound. The 
wide sheet of coral glared before us deserted; all 
having stowed themselves in dark canvas from the 
excess of room. I have gone to and fro in that 
labyrinth of a place, seeking the king; and the 
only breathing creature I could find was when I 
peered under the eaves of a maniap’, and saw the 
brawny body of one of the wives stretched on the 
floor, a naked Amazon plunged in noiseless slum- 
ber. It it were still the hour of the “ morning 
papers’ the quest would be more easy, the half- 
dozen obsequious, sly dogs squatting on the ground 
outside a house, crammed as far as possible in its 
narrow shadow, and turning to the king a row of 
leering faces. Tembinok’ would be within, the 
flaps of the cabin raised, the trade blowing through, 
hearing their report. Like journalists nearer home, 
when the day’s news were scanty, these would 
make the more of it in words; and I have known 


353 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


one to fill up a barren morning with an imaginary 
conversation of two dogs. Sometimes the king 
deigns to laugh, sometimes to question or jest 
with them, his voice sounding shrilly from the 
cabin. By his side he may have the heir-apparent, 
Paul, his nephew and adopted son, six years old, 
stark naked, and a model of young human beauty. 
And there will always be the favourite and perhaps 
two other wives awake; four more lying supine 
under mats and whelmed in slumber. Or perhaps 
we came later, fell on a more private hour, and 
found Tembinok’ retired in the house with the fa- 
vourite, an earthenware spittoon, a leaden inkpot, 
and a commercial ledger. In the last, lying on his 
belly, he writes from day to day the uneventful his- 
tory of his reign; and when thus employed he be- 
trayed a touch of fretfulness on interruption with 
which I was well able to sympathise. The royal 
annalist once read me a page or so, translating as he 
went; but the passage being genealogical, and the 
author boggling extremely in his version, I own I 
have been sometimes better entertained. Nor does 
he confine himself to prose, but touches the lyre too, 
in his leisure moments, and passes for the chief 
bard of his kingdom, as he is its sole public charac- 
ter, leading architect, and only merchant. His com- 
petence, however, does not reach to music; and 
his verses, when they are ready, are taught to a 
professional musician, who sets them and instructs 
the chorus. Asked what his songs were about, 
Tembinok’ replied, “Sweethearts and trees and 
the sea. Not all the same true, all the same lie.” 


APEMAMA 359 


For a condensed view of lyrical poetry (except that 
he seems to have forgot the stars and flowers) this 
would be hard to mend. These multifarious occu- 
pations bespeak (in a native and an absolute prince) 
unusual activity of mind. 

The palace court at noon is a spot to be re- 
membered with awe, the visitor scrambling there, 
on the loose stones, through a splendid nightmare 
of light and heat; but the sweep of the wind de- 
livers it from flies and mosquitos; and with the 
set of sun it became heavenly. I remember it best 
on moonless nights. The air was like a bath of 
milk. Countless shining stars were overhead, the . 
lagoon paved with them. Herds of wives squatted 
by companies on the gravel, softly chatting. Tem- 
binok’ would doff his jacket, and sit bare and silent, 
perhaps meditating songs; the favourite usually by 
him, silent also. Meanwhile in the midst of the 
court, the palace lanterns were being lit and mar- 
shalled in rank upon the ground — six or eight 
square yards of them; a sight that gave one 
strange ideas of the number of “my pamily”’: 
such a sight as may be seen about dusk in a cor- 
ner of some great terminus at home. Presently 
these fared off into all corners of the precinct, 
lighting the last labours of the day, lighting one 
after another to their rest that prodigious com- 
pany of women. A few lingered in the middle 
of the court for the card-party, and saw the hon- 
ours shuffled and dealt, and Tembinok’ deliberat- 
ing between his two hands, and the queens losing 
their tobacco. Then these also were scattered and 


360 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


extinguished; and their place was taken by a great 
bonfire, the night-light of the palace. When this 
was no more, smaller fires burned likewise at the 
gates. These were tended by the crones, unseen, 
unsleeping — not always unheard. Should any ap- 
proach in the dark hours, a guarded alert made 
the circuit of the palisade; each sentry signalled 
her neighbour with a stone; the rattle of falling 
pebbles passed and died away; and the wardens 
of Tembinok’ crouched in their places silent as 
before. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE KING OF APEMAMA: EQUATOR TOWN 
AND THE PALACE 


IVE persons were detailed to wait upon us. 
Uncle Parker, who brought us toddy and 


green nuts, was an elderly, almost an old 
man, with the spirits, the industry, and the morals 
of a boy of ten. His face was ancient, droll, and 
diabolical, the skin stretched over taut sinews, like 
a sail on the guide-rope; and he smiled with every 
muscle of his head. His nuts must be counted 
every day, or he would deceive us in the tale; 
they must be daily examined, or some would prove 
to be unhusked; nothing but the king’s name, and 
scarcely that, would hold him to his duty. After 
his toils were over he was given a pipe, matches, 
and tobacco, and sat on the floor in the maniap’ 
to smoke. He would not seem to move from his 
position, and yet every day, when the things fell 
to be returned, the plug had disappeared; he had 
found the means to conceal it in the roof, whence 
he could radiantly produce it on the morrow. Al- 
though this piece of legerdemain was performed 
regularly before three or four pairs of eyes, we 
could never catch him in the fact; although we 


702. :1N (THE (SOU T A esas 


searched after he was gone, we could never find 
the tobacco. Such were the diversions of Uncle 
Parker, a man nearing sixty. But he was pun- 
ished according unto his deeds: Mrs. Stevenson 
took a fancy to paint him, and the sufferings of 
the sitter were beyond description. 

Three lasses came from the palace to do our 
washing and racket with Ah Fu. They were of 
the lowest class, hangers-on kept for the con- 
venience of merchant skippers, probably low-born, 
perhaps out-islanders, with little refinement whether 
of manner or appearance, but likely and jolly 
enough wenches in their way. We called one 
Guttersmipe, for you may find her image in the 
slums of any city: the same lean, dark-eyed, eager, 
vulgar face, the same sudden, hoarse guffaws, the 
same forward and yet’anxious manner, as with a 
tail of an eye on the policeman: only the police- 
man here was a live king, and his truncheon a 
rifle. I doubt if you could find anywhere out of 
the islands, or often there, the parallel of Fatty, 
a mountain of a girl, who must have weighed near 
as many stones as she counted summers, could have 
given a good account of a life-guardsman, had the 
face of a baby, and applied her vast mechanical 
forces almost exclusively to play. But they were 
all three of the same merry spirit. Our washing 
was conducted in a game of romps; and they 
fled and pursued, and splashed, and pelted, and 
rolled each other in the sand, and kept up a con- 
tinuous noise of cries and laughter like holiday 
children. Indeed, and however strange their own 


APEMAMA 363 


function in that austere establishment, were they 
not escaped for the day from the largest and strict- 
est Ladies’ School in the South Seas? 

Our fifth attendant was no less a person than the 
royal cook. He was strikingly handsome both in 
face and body, lazy as a slave, and insolent as a 
butcher’s boy. He slept and smoked on our prem- 
ises in various graceful attitudes; but so far from 
helping Ah Fu, he was not at the pains to watch 
him. It may be said of him that he came to learn, 
and remained to teach; and his lessons were at 
times difficult to stomach. For example, he was 
sent to fill a bucket from the well. About half- 
way he found my wife watering her onions, 
changed buckets with her, and leaving her the 
empty, returned to the kitchen with the full. On 
another occasion he was given a dish of dumplings 
for the king, was told they must be eaten hot, and 
that he should carry them as fast as possible. The 
wretch set off at the rate of about a mile in the 
hour, head in air, toes turned out. My patience, 
after a month of trial, failed me at the sight. I 
pursued, caught him by his two big shoulders, and 
thrusting him before me, ran with him down the 
hill, over the sands, and through the applauding 
village, to the Speak House, where the king was 
then holding a pow-wow. He had the impudence 
to pretend he was internally injured by my violence, 
and to profess serious apprehensions for his life. 

All this we endured; for the ways of Tembinok’ 
are summary, and I was not yet ripe to take a hand 
in the man’s death. But in the meanwhile, here 


364 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


was my unfortunate China boy slaving for the pair, 
and presently he fell sick. I was now in the posi- 
tion of Cimondain Lantenac, and indeed all the 
characters in Quatre-Vingt-Treize: to continue to 
spare the guilty, I must sacrifice the innocent. I 
took the usual course and tried to save both, with 
the usual consequence of failure. Well rehearsed, 
I went down to the palace, found the king alone, 
and obliged him with a vast amount of rigmarole. 
The cook was too old to learn: I feared he wag 
not making progress; how if we had a boy instead? 
— boys were more teachable. It was all in vain; 
the king pierced through my disguises to the root 
of the fact; saw that the cook had desperately 
misbehaved; and sat awhile glooming. “I think 
he tavvy too much,” he said at last, with grim 
concision; and immediately turned the talk to other 
subjects. The same day another high officer, the 
steward, appeared in the cook’s place, and, I am 
bound to say, proved civil and industrious. 

As soon as I left, it seems the king called for a 
Winchester and strolled outside the palisade, await- 
ing the defaulter. That day Tembinok’ wore the 
woman’s frock; as like as not, his make-up was 
completed by a pith helmet and blue spectacles. 
Conceive the glaring stretch of sandhills, the dwarf 
palms with their noonday shadows, the line of the 
palisade, the crone sentries (each by a small clear 
fire) cooking syrup on their posts — and this chi- 
mera waiting with his deadly engine. To him, 
enter at last the cook, strolling down the sandhill 
from Equator Town, listless, vain, and graceful; 


APEMAMA 365 


with no thought of alarm. As soon as he was well 
within range, the travestied monarch fired the six 
shots over his head, at his feet, and on either hand 
of him: the second Apemama warning, startling 
in itself, fatal in significance, for the next time his 
majesty will aim to hit. I am told the king is a 
crack shot; that when he aims to kill, the grave 
may be got ready; and when he aims to miss, 
misses by so near a margin that the culprit tastes 
six times the bitterness of death. The effect upon 
the cook I had an opportunity of seeing for myself. 
My wife and I were returning from the sea-side 
of the island, when we spied one coming to meet 
us at a very quick, disordered pace, between a walk 
and a run. As we drew nearer we saw it was the 
cook, beside himself with some emotion, his usual 
warm, mulatto colour declined into a bluish pallor. 
He passed us without word or gesture, staring on 
us with the face of a Satan, and plunged on across 
the wood for the unpeopled quarter of the island 
and the long, desert beach, where he might rage to 
and fro unseen, and froth out the vials of his 
wrath, fear, and humiliation. Doubtless in the 
curses that he there uttered to the bursting surf 
and the tropic birds, the name of the Kaupoi — 
the rich man — was frequently repeated. I had 
made him the laughing-stock of the village in the 
affair of the king’s dumplings; I had brought him 
by my machinations into disgrace and the imme- 
diate jeopardy of his days; last, and perhaps bit- 
terest, he had found me there by the way to spy 
upon him in the hour of his disorder. 


366. IN) THE iO UTHesSEae 


Time passed, and we saw no more of him. The 
_ season of the full moon came round, when a man 
thinks shame to lie sleeping; and I continued until 
late — perhaps till twelve or one in the morning 
—to walk on the bright sand and in the tossing 
shadow of the palms. I played, as I wandered, 
on a flageolet, which occupied much of my atten- 
tion; the fans overhead rattled in the wind with 
a metallic chatter; and a bare foot falls at any rate 
almost noiseless on that shifting soil. Yet when 
I got back to Equator Town, where all the lights 
were out, and my wife (who was still awake, and 
had been looking forth) asked me who it was that 
followed me, I thought she spoke in jest. ‘ Not 
at all,” she said. “I saw him twice as you passed, 
walking close at your heels. He only left you at 
the corner of the maniap’; he must be still behind 
the cook-house.” Thither I ran — like a fool, with- 
out any weapon — and came face to face with the 
cook. He was within my tapu-line, which was death 
in itself; he could have no business there at such 
an hour but either to steal or to kill; guilt made 
him timorous; and he turned and fled before me 
in the night in silence. As he went I kicked him 
in that place where honour lies, and he gave tongue 
faintly like an injured mouse. At the moment I 
dare say he supposed it was a deadly instrument 
that touched him. 

What had the man been after? I have found 
my music better qualified to scatter than to collect 
an audience. Amateur as I was, I could not sup- 
pose him interested in my reading of the Carnival 


APEMAMA 367 


of Venice, or that he would deny himself his natural 
rest to follow my variations on The Ploughboy. 
And whatever his design, it was impossible I 
should suffer him to prowl by night among the 
houses. A word to the king, and the man were 
not, his case being far beyond pardon. But it is 
one thing to kill a man yourself; quite another 
to bear tales behind his back and have him shot 
by a third party; and I determined to deal with 
the fellow in some method of my own. I told 
Ah Fu the story, and bade him fetch me the cook 
whenever he should find him. I had supposed this 
would be a matter of difficulty; and far from that, 
he came of his own accord: an act really of des- 
peration, since his life hung by my silence, and the 
best he could hope was to be forgotten. Yet he 
came with an assured countenance, volunteered no 
apology or explanation, complained of injuries re- 
ceived, and pretended he was unable to sit down. 
I suppose I am the weakest man God made; I 
had kicked him in the least vulnerable part of his 
big carcase; my foot was bare, and I had not even 
hurt my foot. Ah Fu could not control his merri- 
ment. On my side, knowing what must be the 
nature of his apprehensions, I found in so much 
impudence a kind of gallantry, and secretly admired 
the man. I told him I should say nothing of his 
night’s adventure to the king; that I should still 
allow him, when he had an errand, to come within 
my tapu-line by day; but if ever I found him 
there after the set of the sun I would shoot him 
on the spot; and to the proof showed him a 


368 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


revolver. He must have been incredibly relieved; 
but he showed no sign of it, took himself off with 
his usual dandy nonchalance, and was scarce seen 
by us again. 

These five, then, with the substitution of the 
steward for the cook, came and went, and were 
our only visitors. The circle of the tapu held at 
arm’s-length the inhabitants of the village. As 
for “my pamily,” they dwelt like nuns in their 
enclosure; only once have I met one of them 
abroad, and she was the king’s sister, and the place 
in which I found her (the island infirmary) was 
very likely privileged. There remains only the 
king to be accounted for. He would come strolling 
over, always alone, a little before a meal-time, take 
a chair, and talk and eat with us like an old family 
friend. Gilbertine etiquette appears defective on 
the point of leave-taking. It may be remembered 
we had trouble in the matter with Karaiti; and 
there was something childish and disconcerting in 
Tembinok’s abrupt “I want go home now,” ac- 
companied by a kind of ducking rise, and followed 
by an unadorned retreat. It was the only blot 
upon his manners, which were otherwise plain, 
decent, sensible, and dignified. He never stayed 
long nor drank much, and copied our behaviour 
where he perceived it to differ from his own. Very 
early in the day, for instance, he ceased eating with 
his knife. It was plain he was determined in all 
things to wring profit from our visit, and chiefly 
upon etiquette. The quality of his white visitors 
puzzled and concerned him; he would bring up 


APEMAMA 369 


name after name, and ask if its bearer were a 
“big chiep,” or even a “chiep” at all — which, 
as some were my excellent good friends, and none 
were actually born in the purple, became at times 
embarrassing. He was struck to learn that our 
classes were distinguishable by their speech, and 
that certain words (for instance) were tapu on the 
quarter-deck of a man-of-war; and he begged in 
consequence that we should watch and correct him 
on the point. We were able to assure him that he 
was beyond correction. His vocabulary is apt and 
ample to an extraordinary degree. God knows 
where he collected it, but by some instinct or some 
accident he has avoided all profane or gross expres- 
sions. “ Obliged,’” “ stabbed,” “ gnaw,” “ lodge,” 
“ power,” “company,” “ slender,’ ‘“ smooth,” and 
“wonderful,” are a few of the unexpected words 
that enrich his dialect. Perhaps what pleased him 
most was to hear about saluting the quarter-deck 
of a man-of-war. In his gratitude for this hint 
he became fulsome. ‘‘ Schooner cap’n no tell me,” 
he cried; “I think no tavvy! You tavvy too much; 
tavvy ‘teama’, tavvy man-o-wa’. I think you tavvy 
everything.” Yet he gravelled me often enough 
with his perpetual questions; and the false Mr. 
Barlow stood frequently exposed before the royal 
Sandford. I remember once in particular. We 
were showing the magic lantern; a slide of Wind- 
sor Castle was put in, and I told him there was 
the “outch” of Victoreea. “‘ How many pathom 
he high?” he asked, and I was dumb before him. 
It was the builder, the indefatigable architect of 


24 


R70 -LN THE SOUTH Ss fas 


palaces, that spoke; collector though he was, he 
did not collect useless information; and all his 
questions had a purpose. After etiquette, govern- 
ment, law, the police, money, and medicine were 
his chief interests — things vitally important to 
himself as a king and the father of his people. 
It was my part not only to supply new informa- 
tion, but to correct the old. ‘“ My patha he tell 
me,” or ‘‘ White man he tell me,” would be his 
constant beginning. ‘“ You think he lie?” Some- 
times I thought he did. Tembinok’ once brought 
me a difficulty of this kind, which I was long of 
comprehending. A schooner captain had told him 
of Captain Cook; the king was much interested in 
the story; and turned for more information — 
not to Mr. Stephen’s Dictionary, not to the Bri- 
tannica, but to the Bible in the Gilbert Island 
version (which consists chiefly of the New Testa- 
ment and the Psalms). Here he sought long and 
earnestly; Paul he found, and Festus, and Alex- 
ander the coppersmith: no word of Cook. The 
inference was obvious: the explorer was a myth. 
So hard it is, even for a man of great natural parts 
like Tembinok’, to grasp the ideas of a new society 
and culture. 


CHAPTER V 


KING AND COMMONS 


‘ ), yE saw but little of the commons of the 
isle. At first we met them at the well, 

where they washed their linen and we 

drew water for the table. The combination was 
distasteful; and, having a tyrant at command, we 
applied to the king and had the place enclosed in 
our tapu. It was one of the few favours which 
Tembinok’ visibly boggled about granting, and it 
may be conceived how little popular it made the 
strangers. Many villagers passed us daily going 
afield; but they fetched a wide circuit round our 
tapu, and seemed to avert their looks. At times 
we went ourselves into the village—a strange 
place. Dutch by its canals, Oriental by the height 
and steepness of the roofs, which looked at dusk 
like temples; but we were rarely called into a 
house; no welcome, no friendship, was offered us; 
and of home life we had but the one view: the 
waking of a corpse, a frigid, painful scene: the 
widow holding on her lap the cold, bluish body & 
her husband, and now partaking of the retresh- 
ments which made the round of the company, now 
weeping and kissing the pale mouth. (“I fear you 


372 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


feel this affliction deeply,” said the Scottish min- 
ister. ‘‘ Eh, sir, and that I do!” replied the widow. 
“T’ve been greetin’ a’ nicht; an’ noo I’m just 
gaun to sup this bit parritch, and then I'll begin 
an’ greet again.’”’) In our walks abroad I have 
always supposed the islanders avoided us, perhaps 
from distaste, perhaps by order; and those whom 
we met we took generally by surprise. The surface 
of the isle is diversified with palm groves, thickets, 
and romantic dingles four feet deep, relics of old 
taro plantation; and it is thus possible to stumble 
unawares on folk resting or hiding from their work. 
About pistol-shot from our township there lay a 
pond in the bottom of a jungle; here the maids of 
the isle came to bathe, and were several times 
alarmed by our intrusion. Not for them are the 
bright cold rivers of Tahiti or Upolu, not for them 
to splash and laugh in the hour of the dusk with 
a villageful of gay companions; but to steal here 
solitary, to crouch in a place like a cow-wallow, 
and wash (if that can be called washing) in luke- 
warm mud, brown as their own skins. Other, but 
still rare, encounters occur to my memory. I was 
several times arrested by a tender sound in the bush 
of voices talking, soft as flutes and with quiet in- 
tonations. Hope told a flattering tale; I put aside 
the leaves; and behold! in place of the expected 
dryads, a pair of all too solid ladies squatting over 
a clay pipe in the ungraceful ridi. The beauty of 
the voice and the eye was all that remained to these 
vast dames; but that of the voice was indeed ex- 
quisite. It is strange I should have never heard 


APEMAMA 373 


a more winning sound of speech, yet the dialect 
should be one remarkable for violent, ugly, and 
outlandish vocables; so that Tembinok’ himself 
declared it made him weary, and professed to find 
repose in talking English. 

The state of this folk, of whom I saw so little, 
I can merely guess at. The king himself explains 
the situation with some art. ‘No; I no pay 
them,” he once said. “I give them tobacco. They 
work for me all the same brothers.” It is true 
there was a brother once in Arden! But we prefer 
the shorter word. They bear every servile mark, 
— levity like a child’s, incurable idleness, incurious 
content. The insolence of the cook was a trait of 
his own; not so his levity, which he shared with 
the innocent Uncle Parker. With equal unconcern 
both gambolled under the shadow of the gallows, 
and took liberties with death that might have sur- 
prised a careless student of man’s nature. I wrote 
of Parker that he behaved like a boy of ten: what 
was he else, being a slave of sixty? He had passed 
all his years in school, fed, clad, thought for, com- 
manded; and had grown familiar and coquetted 
with the fear of punishment. By terror you may 
drive men long, but not far. Here, in Apemama, 
they work at the constant and the instant peril of 
their lives; and are plunged in a kind of lethargy 
of laziness. It is common to see one go afield in 
his stiff mat ungirt, so that he walks elbows-in like 
a trussed fowl; and whatsoever his right hand 
findeth to do, the other must be off duty holding 
on his clothes. It is common to see two men carry- 


374 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


ing between them on a pole a single bucket of 
water. To make two bites of a cherry is good 
enough: to make two burthens of a soldier’s kit, 
for a distance of perhaps half a furlong, passes 
measure. Woman, being the less childish animal, 
is less relaxed by servile conditions. Even in the 
king’s absence, even when they were alone, I have 
seen Apemama women work with constancy. But 
the outside to be hoped for in a man is that he 
may attack his task in little languid fits, and lounge 
between-whiles. So I have seen a painter, with his 
pipe going, and a friend by the studio fireside. 
You might suppose the race to lack civility, even 
vitality, until you saw them in the dance. Night 
after night, and sometimes day after day, they 
rolled out their choruses in the great Speak House 
— solemn andantes and adagios, led by the clapped 
hand, and delivered with an energy that shook the 
roof. The time was not so slow, though it was 
slow for the islands; but I have chosen rather to 
indicate the effect upon the hearer. Their music 
had a church-like character from near at hand, and 
seemed to European ears more regular than the 
run of island music. Twice I have heard a dis- 
cord regularly solved. From farther off, heard at 
Equator Town for instance, the measures rose and 
fell and crepitated like the barking of hounds in a 
distant kennel. 

The slaves are certainly not overworked — chil- 
dren of ten do more without fatigue—and the 
Apemama labourers have holidays, when the sing- 
ing begins early in the afternoon. The diet is 


APEMAMA 375 


hard; copra and a sweetmeat of pounded pan- 
danus are the only dishes I observed outside the 
palace; but there seems no defect in quantity, and 
the king shares with them his turtles. Three came 
in a boat from Kuria during our stay; one was 
kept for the palace, one sent to us, one presented 
to the village. It is the habit of the islanders to 
cook the turtle in its carapace; we had been prom- 
ised the shells, and we asked a tapu on this foolish 
practice. The face of Tembinok’ darkened and he 
answered nothing. MHesitation in the question of 
the well I could understand, for water is scarce on 
a low island; that he should refuse to interfere 
upon a point of cookery was more than I had 
dreamed of; and I gathered (rightly or wrongly) 
that he was scrupulous of touching in the least 
degree the private life and habits of his slaves. 
So that even here, in full despotism, public opinion 
has weight; even here, in the midst of slavery, 
freedom has a corner. 

Orderly, sober, and innocent, life flows in the 
isle from day to day as in a model plantation 
under a model planter. It is impossible to doubt 
the beneficence of that stern rule. A curious 
politeness, a soft and gracious manner, something 
effeminate and courtly, distinguishes the islanders 
of Apemama; it is talked of by all the traders, it 
was felt even by residents so little beloved as our- 
selves, and noticeable even in the cook, and even 
in that scoundrel’s hours of insolence. The king, 
with his manly and plain bearing, stood out alone; 
you might say he was the only Gilbert Islander tn 


376 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


Apemama. Violence, so common in Butaritari, 
seems unknown. So are theft and drunkenness. 
I am assured the experiment has been made of 
leaving sovereigns on the beach before the village: 
they lay there untouched. In all our time on the 
island I was but once asked for drink. This was 
by a mighty plausible fellow, wearing European 
clothes and speaking excellent English — Tamaiti 
his name, or, as the whites have now corrupted it, 
“Tom White”: one of the king’s supercargoes at 
three pounds a month and a percentage, a medical 
man besides, and in his private hours a wizard. 
He found me one day in the outskirts of the 
village, in a secluded place, hot and private, where 
the taro-pits are deep and the plants high. Here 
he buttonholed me, and, looking about him like a 
conspirator, inquired if I had gin. 

I told him I had. He remarked that gin was 
forbidden, lauded the prohibition awhile, and then 
went on to explain that he was a doctor, or “ dog- 
star ’’ as he pronounced the word, that gin was 
necessary to him for his medical infusions, that 
he was quite out of it, and that he would be obliged 
to me for some in a bottle. I told him I had passed 
the king my word on landing; but since his case 
was so exceptional, I would go down to the palace 
at once, and had no doubt that Tembinok’ would 
set me free. Tom White was immediately over- 
whelmed with embarrassment and terror, besought 
me in the most moving terms not to betray him, 
and fled my neighbourhood. He had none of the 
cook’s valour; it was weeks before he dared to 


APEMAMA Cyl: 


meet my eye; and then only by the order of the 
king and on particular business. 

The more I viewed and admired this triumph of 
firm rule, the more I was haunted and troubled by 
a problem, the problem (perhaps) of to-morrow 
for ourselves. Here was a people protected from 
all serious misfortune, relieved of all serious anxie- 
ties, and deprived of what we call our liberty. Did 
they like it? and what was their sentiment toward 
the ruler? The first question I could not of course 
ask, nor perhaps the natives answer. Even the 
second was delicate; yet at last, and under charm- 
ing and strange circumstances, I found my oppor- 
tunity to put it and a man toreply. It was near 
the full of the moon, with a delicious breeze; the 
isle was bright as day —to sleep would have been 
sacrilege; and I walked in the bush, playing my 
pipe. It must have been the sound of what I am 
pleased to call my music that attracted in my direc- 
tion another wanderer of the night. This was a 
young man attired in a fine mat, and with a gar- 
land on his hair, for he was new come from danc- 
ing and singing in the public hall; and his body, 
his face, and his eyes, were all of an enchanting 
beauty. Every here and there in the Gilberts youths 
are to be found of this absurd perfection; I have 
seen five of us pass half an hour in admiration of 
a boy at Mariki; and Te Kop (my friend in the 
fine mat and garland) I had already several times 
remarked, and long ago set down as the loveliest 
animal in Apemama. ‘The philtre of admiration 
must be very strong, or these natives specially 


a9ee UN DEV Bi SOs ie Bi Sans 


susceptible to its effects, for I have scarce ever 
admired a person in the islands but what he has 
sought my particular acquaintance. So it was with 
Te Kop. He led me to the ocean-side; and for 
an hour or two we sat smoking and talking on the 
resplendent sand and under the ineffable bright- 
ness of the moon. My friend showed himself very 
sensible of the beauty and amenity of the hour. 
“Good night! Good wind!” he kept exclaiming, 
and as he said the words he seemed to hug him- 
self. I had long before invented such reiterated 
expressions of delight for a character (Felipe, in 
the story of Olalla) intended to be partly bestial. 
But there was nothing bestial in Te Kop; only a 
childish pleasure in the moment. He was no less 
pleased with his companion, or was good enough 
to say so; honoured me, before he left, by calling 
me Te Kop; apostrophised me as “ My name!” 
with an intonation exquisitely tender, laying his 
hand at the same time swiftly on my knee; and 
after we had risen, and our paths began to sepa- 
rate in the bush, twice cried to me with a sort of 
gentle ecstasy, “I like you too much!” From the 
beginning he had made no secret of his terror of 
the king; would not sit down or speak above a 
whisper till he had put the whole breadth of the 
isle between himself and his monarch, then harm- 
lessly asleep; and even there, even within a stone- 
cast of the outer sea, our talk covered by the sound 
of the surf and the rattle of the wind among the 
palms, continued to speak guardedly, softening 
his silver voice (which rang loud enough in the 


APEMAMA 379 


chorus) and looking about him like a man in fear 
of spies. The strange thing is that I should have 
beheld him no more. In any other island in the 
whole South Seas, if I had advanced half as far 
with any native, he would have been at my door 
next morning, bringing and expecting gifts. But 
Te Kop vanished in the bush for ever. My house, 
of course, was unapproachable; but he knew where 
to find me on the ocean beach, where I went daily. 
I was the Kaupot, the rich man; my tobacco and 
trade were known to be endless; he was sure of 
a present. I am at a loss how to explain his be- 
haviour, unless it be supposed that he recalled with 
terror and regret a passage in our interview. Here 
it is: 

“The king, he good man?” I asked. 

“Suppose he like you, he good man,’ replied 
Te Kop: “no like, no good.” 

That is one way of putting it, of course. Te Kop 
himself was probably no favourite, for he scarce 
appealed to my judgment as a type of industry. 
And there must be many others whom the king 
(to adhere to the formula) does not like. Do 
these unfortunates like the king? Or is not rather 
the repulsion mutual? and the conscientious Tem- 
binok’, like the conscientious Braxfield before him, 
and many other conscientious rulers and judges be- 
fore either, surrounded by a considerable body of 
“grumbletonians”’? ‘Take the cook, for instance, 
when he passed us by, blue with rage and terror. 
He was very wroth with me; I think by all the 
old principles of human nature he was not very 


380 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


well pleased with his sovereign. It was the rich 
man he sought to waylay: I think it must have 
been by the turn of a hair that it was not the king 
he waylaid instead. And the king gives, or seems 
to give, plenty of opportunities; day and night he 
goes abroad alone, whether armed or not I can 
but guess; and the taro-patches, where his busi- 
ness must so often carry him, seem designed for 
assassination. The case of the cook was heavy 
indeed to my conscience. I did not like to kill 
my enemy at second-hand; but had I a right to 
conceal from the king, who had trusted me, the 
dangerous secret character of his attendant? And 
suppose the king should fall, what would be the 
fate of the king’s friends? It was our opinion 
at the time that we should pay dear for the clos- 
ing of the well; that our breath was in the king’s 
nostrils; that if the king should by any chance 
be bludgeoned in a taro-patch, the philosophical and 
musical inhabitants of Equator Town might lay 
aside their pleasant instruments, and betake them- 
selves to what defence they had, with a very dim 
prospect of success. These speculations were 
forced upon us by an incident which I am 
ashamed to betray. The schooner H. L. Haseltine 
(since capsized at sea, with the loss of eleven 
lives) put in to Apemama in a good hour for us, 
who had near exhausted our supplies. The king, 
after his habit, spent day after day on board; the 
gin proved unhappily to his taste; he brought a 
store of it ashore with him; and for some time 
the sole tyrant of the isle was half-seas over. He 


APEMAMA 381 


was not drunk, — the man is not a drunkard, he 
has always stores of liquor at hand, which he uses 
with moderation, — but he was muzzy, dull, and 
confused. He came one day to lunch with us, 
and while the cloth was being laid fell asleep in 
his chair. His confusion, when he awoke and 
found he had been detected, was equalled by our 
uneasiness. When he was gone we sat and spoke 
of his peril, which we thought to be in some de- 
gree our own; of how easily the man might be 
surprised in such a state by “ grumbletonians”’; of 
the strange scenes that would follow — the royal 
treasures and stores at the mercy of the rabble, 
the palace overrun, the garrison of women turned 
adrift. And as we talked we were startled by a 
gun-shot and a sudden, barbaric outcry. I believe 
we all changed colour; but it was only the king 
firing at a dog and the chorus striking up in 
the Speak House. A day or two later I learned 
the king was very sick; went down, diagnosed the 
case; and took at once the highest medical de- 
gree by the exhibition of bicarbonate of soda. 
Within the hour Richard was himself again; and 
I found him at the unfinished house, enjoying the 
double pleasure of directing Rubam and making a 
dinner off cocoa-nut dumplings, and all eagerness 
to have the formula of this new sort of “ pain- 
killer”? — for ‘‘ pain-killer’’ in the islands is the 
generic name of medicine. So ended the king’s 
modest spree and our anxiety. 

On the face of things, I. ought to say, loyaity 
appeared unshaken. When the schooner at last 


g32 IN THE. SOUT EH SBA 


returned for us, after much experience of baffling 
winds, she brought a rumour that Tebureimoa had 
declared war on Apemama. Tembinok’ became a 
new man; his face radiant; his attitude, as I saw 
him preside over a council of chiefs in one of the 
palace maniap’s, eager as a boy’s; his voice sound- 
ing abroad, shrill and jubilant, over half the com- 
pound. War is what he wants, and here was his 
chance. The English captain, when he flung his 
arms in the lagoon, had forbidden him (except in 
one case) all military adventures in the future: 
here was the case arrived. All morning the 
council sat; men were drilled, arms were bought, 
the sound of firing disturbed the afternoon; the 
king devised and communicated to me his plan 
of campaign, which was highly elaborate and 
ingenious, but perhaps a trifle fine-spun for the 
rough and random vicissitudes of war. And in 
all this bustle the temper of the people appeared 
excellent, an unwonted animation in every face, 
and even Uncle Parker burning with military 
zeal, 

Of course it was a false alarm. Tebureimoa had 
other fish to fry. The ambassador who accom- 
panied us on our return to Butaritari found him 
retired to a small island on the reef, in a huff 
with the Old Men, a tiff with the traders, and 
more fear of insurrection at home than appetite 
for wars abroad. The plenipotentiary had been 
placed under my protection; and we solemnly 
saluted when we met. He proved an excellent 
fisherman, and caught bonito over the ship’s side. 


APEMAMA 383 


He pulled a good oar, and made himself useful 
for a whole fiery afternoon, towing the becalmed 
Equator off Mariki. He went to his post and did 
no good. He returned home again, having done 
no harm. O st sic omnes! 


CHAPTER VI 


THE KING OF APEMAMA: DEVIL-WORK 


HE ocean beach of Apemama was our 

daily resort. The coast is broken by 

shallow bays. The reef is detached, 
elevated, and includes a lagoon about knee-deep, 
the unrestful spending-basin of the surf. The 
beach is now of fine sand, now of broken coral. 
The trend of the coast being convex, scarce a 
quarter of a mile of it is to be seen at once; the 
land being so low, the horizon appears within a 
stone-cast; and the narrow prospect enhances the 
sense of privacy. Man avoids the place — even 
his footprints are uncommon; but a great number 
of birds hover and pipe there fishing, and leave 
crooked tracks upon the sand. Apart from these, 
the only sound (and I was going to say the only 
society) is that of the breakers on the reef. 

On each projection of the coast, the bank of 
coral clinkers immediately above the beach has 
been levelled, and a pillar built, perhaps breast- 
high. These are not sepulchral; all the dead 
being buried on the inhabited side of the island, 
close to men’s houses, and (what is worse) to 
their wells. I was told they were to protect the 


APEMAMA 385 


isle against inroads from the sea — divine or dia- 
bolical martellos, probably sacred to Taburik, God 
of Thunder. 

The bay immediately opposite Equator Town, 
which we called Fu Bay, in honour of our cook, 
was thus fortified on either horn. It was well 
sheltered by the reef, the enclosed water clear and 
tranquil, the enclosing beach curved like a horse- 
shoe, and both steep and broad. The path de- 
bouched about the midst of the re-entrant angle, 
the woods stopping some distance inland. In front, 
between the fringe of the wood and the crown of 
the beach, there had been designed a regular figure, 
like the court for some new variety of tennis, with 
borders of round stones imbedded, and pointed at 
the angles with low posts, likewise of stone. This 
was the king’s Pray Place. When he prayed, what 
he prayed for, and to whom he addressed his sup- 
plications, I could never learn. The ground was 
tapu. 

In the angle, by the mouth of the path, stood a 
deserted maniap’. Near by there had been a house 
before our coming, which was now transported 
and figured for the moment in Equator Town. It 
had been, and it would be again when we de- 
parted, the residence of the guardian and wizard 
of the spot — Tamaiti. Here, in this lone place, 
within sound of the sea, he had his dwelling and 
uncanny duties. I cannot call to mind another case 
of a man living on the ocean-side of any open 
atoll; and Tamaiti must have had strong nerves, 
the greater confidence in his own spells, or, what 

25 


986 DN UT HE. 'S OWUSD His Beare 


I believe to be the truth, an enviable scepticism. 
Whether Tamaiti had any guardianship of the 
Pray Place I never heard. But his own particu- 
lar chapel stood farther back in the fringe of 
the wood. It was a tree of respectable growth. 
Around it there was drawn a circle of stones like 
_ those that enclosed the Pray Place; in front, fac- 
ing towards the sea, a stone of a much greater 
size, and somewhat hollowed, like a piscina, stood 
close against the trunk; in front of that again 
a conical pile of gravel. In the hollow of what 
I have called the piscina (though it proved to be 
a magic seat) lay an offering of green cocoa-nuts; 
and when you looked up you found the boughs 
of the tree to be laden with strange fruit: palm 
branches elaborately plaited, and beautiful models 
of canoes, finished and rigged to the least detail. 
The whole had the appearance of a midsummer 
and sylvan Christmas-tree al fresco. Yet we were 
already well enough acquainted in the Gilberts to 
recognise it, at the first sight, for a piece of wiz- 
ardry, or, as they say in the group, of devil-work. 

The plaited palms were what we recognised. 
We had seen them before on Apaiang, the most 
christianised of all these islands; where excellent 
Mr. Bingham lived and laboured and has left 
golden memories; whence all the education in the 
northern Gilberts traces its descent; and where 
we were boarded by little native Sunday-school 
misses in clean frocks, with demure faces, and 
singing hymns as to the manner born. 

Our experience of devil-work at Apaiang had 


APEMAMA 387 


been as follows: — It chanced we were benighted 
at the house of Captain Tierney. My wife and 
I lodged with a Chinaman some half a mile away; 
and thither Captain Reid and a native boy escorted 
us by torchlight. On the way the torch went out, 
and we took shelter in a small and lonely Christian 
chapel to rekindle it. Stuck in the rafters of the 
chapel was a branch of knotted palm. ‘‘ What . 
is that?” I asked. ‘“ O, that’s devil-work,” said 
the captain. ‘And what is devil-work?”’ I in- 
quired. “If you like, I’ll show you some when 
we get to Johnnie’s,” he replied. “ Johnnie’s”’ 
was a quaint little house upon the crest of the 
beach, raised some three feet on posts, approached 
by stairs; part walled, part trellised. Trophies of 
advertisement-photographs were hung up within 
for decoration. There was a table and a recess- 
bed, in which Mrs. Stevenson slept; while I 
camped on the matted floor with Johnnie, Mrs. 
Johnnie, her sister, and the devil’s own regiment 
of cockroaches. Hither was summoned an old 
witch, who looked the part to horror. The lamp 
was set on the floor; the crone squatted on the 
threshold, a green palm-branch in her hand, the 
light striking full on her aged features and pick- 
ing out behind her, from the black night, timorous 
faces of spectators. Our sorceress began with a 
chanted incantation; it was in the old tongue, for 
which I had no interpreter; but ever and again 
there ran among the crowd outside that laugh 
which every traveller in the islands learns so soon 
to recognise, — the laugh of terror. Doubtless 


388 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


these half-Christian folk were shocked, these half- 
heathen folk alarmed. Chench or Taburik thus 
invoked, we put our questions; the witch knotted 
the leaves, here a leaf and there a leaf, plainly 
on some arithmetical system; studied the result 
with great apparent contention of mind; and gave 
the answers. Sidney Colvin was in robust health 
and gone a journey; and we should have a fair 
wind upon the morrow; that was the result of 
our consultation, for which we paid a dollar. The 
next day dawned cloudless and breathless; but I 
think Captain Reid placed a secret reliance on the 
sybil, for the schooner was got ready for sea. By 
eight the lagoon was flawed with long cat’s-paws, 
and the palms tossed and rustled; before ten we 
were clear of the passage and skimming under all 
plain sail, with bubbling scuppers. So we had the 
breeze, which was well worth a dollar in itself; 
but the bulletin about my friend in England proved, 
some six months later, when I got my mail, to 
have been groundless. Perhaps London lies be- 
yond the horizon of the island gods. 

Tembinok’, in his first dealings, showed himself 
sternly averse from superstition: and had not the 
Equator delayed, we might have left the island 
and still supposed him an agnostic. It chanced 
one day, however, that he came to our maniap’, 
and found Mrs. Stevenson in the midst of a game 
of patience. She explained the game as well as 
she was able, and wound up jocularly by telling 
him this was her devil-work, and if she won, the 
Equator would arrive next day. Tembinok’ must 


APEMAMA 389 


have drawn a long breath; we were not so high 
and dry after all; he need no longer dissemble, 
and he plunged at once into confessions. He 
made devil-work every day, he told us, to know 
if ships were coming in; and thereafter brought 
us regular reports of the results. It was surpris- 
ing how regularly he was wrong; but he had al- 
ways an explanation ready. There had been some 
schooner in the offing out of view; but either she 
was not bound for Apemama, or had changed her 
course, or lay becalmed. I used to regard the 
king with veneration as he thus publicly deceived 
himself. I saw behind him all the fathers of the 
Church, all the philosophers and men of science 
of the past; before him, all those that are to come; 
himself in the midst; the whole visionary series 
bowed over the same task of welding incongrui- 
ties. To the end Tembinok’ spoke reluctantly of 
the island gods and their worship, and I learned 
but little. Taburik is the god of thunder, and 
deals in wind and weather. Awhile since there 
were wizards who could call him down in the 
form of lightning. ‘“‘ My patha he tell me he see: 
you think he lie?” Tienti— pronounced some- 
thing like “ Chench,”’ and identified by his maj- 
esty with the devil—sends and removes bodily 
sickness. He is whistled for in the Paumotuan 
manner, and is said to appear; but the king has 
never seen him. The doctors treat disease by 
the aid of Chench; eclectic Tembinok’ at the 
same time administering “ pain-killer” from his 
medicine-chest, so as to give the sufferer both 


390) DN: T HEN S'O,U0vIMEIy Seas 


chances. ‘‘I think mo’ betta,’ observed his maj- 
esty, with more than his usual self-approval. Ap- 
parently the gods are not jealous, and placidly 
enjoy both shrine and priest in common. On 
Tamaiti’s medicine-tree, for instance, the model 
canoes are hung up ex voto for a prosperous voy- 
age, and must therefore be dedicate to Taburik, 
god of the weather; but the stone in front is the 
place of sick folk come to pacify Chench. 

It chanced, by great good luck, that even as we 
spoke of these affairs, I found myself threatened 
with a cold. I do not suppose I was ever glad 
of a cold before, or shall ever be again; but the 
opportunity to see the sorcerers at work was price- 
less, and I called in the faculty of Apemama. They 
came in a body, all in their Sunday’s best and 
hung with wreaths and shells, the insignia of the 
devil-worker. Tamaiti I knew already: Terutak’ 
I saw for the first time —a tall, lank, raw-boned, 
serious North-Sea fisherman turned brown; and 
there was a third in their company whose name 
I never heard, and who played to Tamaiti the part 
of famulus. Tamaiti took me in hand first, and 
led me, conversing agreeably, to the shores of 
Fu Bay. The famulus climbed a tree for some 
green cocoa-nuts. Tamaiti himself disappeared 
awhile in the bush and returned with cocoa-tinder, 
dry leaves, and a spray of waxberry. I was. placed 
on the stone, with my back to the tree and my 
face to windward; between me and the gravel- 
heap one of the green nuts was set; and then 
Tamaiti (having previously bared his feet, for he 


APEMAMA 391. 


had come in canvas shoes, which tortured him) 
joined me within the magic circle, hollowed out 
the top of the gravel-heap, built his fire in the 
bottom, and applied a match: it was one of Bryant 
and May’s. ‘The flame was slow to catch, and 
the irreverent sorcerer filled in the time with talk 
of foreign places — of London, and “‘ companies,” 
and how much money they had; of San Fran- 
cisco, and the nefarious fogs, “ all the same smoke,” 
which had been so nearly the occasion of his death. 
I tried vainly to lead him to the matter in hand. 
“Everybody make medicine,” he said lightly. And 
when I asked him if he were himself a good prac- 
titioner — “‘ No savvy,” he replied, more lightly 
still. At length the leaves burst in a flame, which 
he continued to feed; a thick, light smoke blew 
in my face, and the flames streamed against and 
scorched my clothes. He in the meanwhile ad- 
dressed, or affected to address, the evil spirit, his 
lips moving fast, but without sound; at the same 
time he waved in the air and twice struck me on the 
breast with his green spray. So soon as the leaves 
were consumed the ashes were buried, the green 
spray was imbedded in the gravel, and the cere- 
mony was at an end. 

A reader of the Arabian Nights felt quite at 
home. Here was the suffumigation; here was the 
muttering wizard; here was the desert place to 
which Aladdin was decoyed by the false uncle. But 
they manage these things better in fiction. The 
effect was marred by the levity of the magician, 
entertaining his patient with small talk like an 


392 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


affable dentist, and by the incongruous presence 
of Mr. Osbourne with a camera. As for my cold, 
it was neither better nor worse. 

I was now handed over to Terutak’, the leading 
practitioner or medical baronet of Apemama. His 
place is on the lagoon side of the island, hard by 
the palace. A rail of light wood, some two feet 
high, encloses an oblong piece of gravel like the 
king’s Pray Place; in the midst is a green tree; 
below, a stone table bears a pair of boxes covered 
with a fine mat; and in front of these an offering 
of food, a cocoa-nut, a piece of taro, or a fish, is 
placed daily. On two sides the enclosure is lined 
with maniap’s; and one of our party, who had 
been there to sketch, had remarked a daily con- 
course of people and an extraordinary number of 
sick children; for this is in fact the infirmary of 
Apemama. The doctor and myself entered the 
sacred place alone; the boxes and the mat were 
displaced; and I was enthroned in their stead upon 
the stone, facing once more to the east. For awhile 
the sorcerer remained unseen behind me, making 
passes in the air with a branch of palm. ‘Then he 
struck lightly on the brim of my straw hat; and 
this blow he continued to repeat at intervals, some- 
times brushing instead my arm and shoulder. I 
have had people try to mesmerise me a dozen times, 
and never with the least result. But at the first tap 
—on a quarter no more vital than my hat-brim, 
and from nothing more virtuous than a switch of 
palm wielded by a man I could not even see — 
sleep rushed upon me like an armed man. My 


APEMAMA 393 


sinews fainted, my eyes closed, my brain hummed, 
with drowsiness. I resisted — at first instinctively, 
then with a sudden flurry of despair, in the end 
successfully; if that were indeed success which 
enabled me to scramble to my feet, to stumble home 
somnambulous, to cast myself at once upon my 
bed, and sink at once into a dreamless stupor. 
When I awoke my cold was gone. So I leave a 
matter that I do not understand. 

Meanwhile my appetite for curiosities (not 
usually very keen) had been strangely whetted by 
the sacred boxes. They were of pandanus wood, 
oblong in shape, with an effect of pillaring along 
the sides like straw work, lightly fringed with hair 
or fibre and standing on four legs. The outside 
was neat as a toy; the inside a mystery I was 
resolved to penetrate. But there was a lion in 
the path. I might not approach Terutak’, since 
I had promised to buy nothing in the island; I 
dared not have recourse to the king, for I had 
already received from him more gifts than I knew 
how to repay. In this dilemma (the schooner 
being at last returned) we hit on a device. Cap- 
tain Reid came forward in my stead, professed an 
unbridled passion for the boxes, and asked and 
obtained leave to bargain for them with the wizard. 
That same afternoon the captain and I made haste 
to the infirmary, entered the enclosure, raised the 
mat, and had begun to examine the boxes at our 
leisure, when Terutak’s wife bounced out of one 
of the nigh houses, fell upon us, swept up the 
treasures, and was gone. There was never a more 


394 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


absolute surprise. She came, she took, she van- 
ished, we had not a guess whither; and we re- 
mained, with foolish looks and laughter, on the 
empty field. Such was the fit prologue of our 
memorable bargaining. 

Presently Terutak’ came, bringing Tamaiti along 
with him, both smiling; and we four squatted 
without the rail. In the three maniap’s of the 
infirmary a certain audience was gathered: the 
family of a sick child under treatment, the king’s 
sister playing cards, a pretty girl, who swore I 
was the image of her father; in all perhaps a 
score. Terutak’s wife had returned (even as she 
had vanished) unseen, and now sat, breathless and 
watchful, by her husband’s side. Perhaps some 
rumour of our quest had gone abroad, or perhaps 
we had given the alert by our unseemly freedom: 
certain, at least, that in the faces of all present 
expectation and alarm were mingled. 

Captain Reid announced, without preface or dis- 
guise, that I was come to purchase; Terutak’, with 
sudden gravity, refused to sell. He was pressed; 
he persisted. It was explained we only wanted 
one: no matter, two were necessary for the heal- 
ing of the sick. He was rallied, he was reasoned 
with: in vain. He sat there, serious and still, and 
refused. All this was only a preliminary skirmish; 
hitherto no sum of money had been mentioned ; 
but now the captain brought his great guns to 
bear. He named a pound, then two, then three. 
Out of the maniap’s one person after another came 
to join the group, some with mere excitement, 


APEMAMA 395 


others with consternation in their faces. The 
pretty girl crept to my side; it was then that — 
surely with the most artless flattery —she in- 
formed me of my likeness to her father. Tamaiti 
the infidel sat with hanging head and every mark 
of dejection. Terutak’ streamed with sweat, his 
eye was glazed, his face wore a painful rictus, his 
chest heaved like that of one spent with running. 
The man must have been by nature covetous; and 
I doubt if ever I saw moral agony more tragically 
displayed. His wife by his side passionately en- 
couraged his resistance. 

And now came the charge of the old guard. 
The captain, making a skip, named the surprising 
figure of five pounds. At the word the maniap’s 
were emptied. The king’s sister flung down her 
cards and came to the front to listen, a cloud on 
her brow. The pretty girl beat her breast and cried 
with wearisome iteration that if the box were hers 
I should have it. Terutak’s wife was beside her- 
self with pious fear, her face discomposed, her 
' voice (which scarce ceased from warning and en- 
couragement) shrill as a whistle. Even Terutak’ 
lost that image-like immobility which he had 
hitherto maintained. He rocked on his mat, 
threw up his closed knees alternately, and struck 
himself on the breast after the manner of dancers. 
But he came gold out of the furnace; and with 
what voice was left him continued to reject the 
bribe. 

And now came a timely interjection. ‘‘ Money 
will not heal the sick,’ observed the king’s sister 


396 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


sententiously; and as soon as I heard the remark 
translated my eyes were unsealed, and I began to 
blush for my employment. Here was a sick child, 
and I sought, in the view of its parents, to re- 
move the medicine-box. Here was the priest of 
a religion, and I (a heathen millionaire) was cor- 
rupting him to sacrilege. Here was a greedy man, 
torn in twain betwixt greed and conscience; and 
I sat by and relished, and lustfully renewed his 
torments. Ave, Cesar! Smothered in a corner, 
dormant but not dead, we have all the one touch 
of nature: an infant passion for the sand and 
blood of the arena. So I brought to an end my 
first and last experience of the joys of the mil- 
lionaire, and departed amid silent awe. Nowhere 
else can I expect to stir the depths of human na- 
ture by an offer of five pounds; nowhere else, 
even at the expense of millions, could I hope to 
see the evil of riches stand so legibly exposed. Of 
all the bystanders, none but the king’s sister re- 
tained any memory of the gravity and danger of 
the thing in hand. Their eyes glowed, the girl 
beat her breast, in senseless animal excitement. 
Nothing was offered them; they stood neither to 
gain nor to lose; at the mere name and wind of 
these great sums Satan possessed them. 

From this singular interview I went straight to 
the palace; found the king; confessed what I had 
been doing; begged him, in my name, to compli- 
ment Terutak’ on his virtue, and to have a simi- 
lar box made for me against the return of the 
schooner. Tembinok’, Rubam, and one of the 


APEMAMA 397 


Daily Papers — him we used to call “ the Facetiz 
Column ’”’ — laboured for awhile of some idea, 
which was at last intelligibly delivered. They 
feared I thought the box would cure me; whereas, 
without the wizard, it was useless; and when I 
was threatened with another cold I should do bet- 
ter to rely on “ pain-killer.” I explained I merely 
wished to keep it in my “ outch” as a thing made 
in Apemama; and these honest men were much 
relieved. 

Late the same evening, my wife, crossing the isle 
to windward, was aware of singing in the bush. 
Nothing is more common in that hour and place 
than the jubilant carol of the toddy-cutter, swing- 
ing high overhead, beholding below him the nar- 
row ribbon of the isle, the surrounding field of 
ocean, and the fires of the sunset. But this wag 
of a graver character, and seemed to proceed from 
the ground-level. Advancing a little in the thicket, 
Mrs. Stevenson saw a clear space, a fine mat spread 
in the midst, and on the mat a wreath of white 
flowers and one of the devil-work boxes. A woman 
— whom we guess to have been Mrs. Terutak’ — 
sat in front, now drooping over the box like a 
mother over a cradle, now lifting her face and 
directing her song to heaven. A passing toddy- 
cutter told my wife that she was praying. Prob- 
ably she did not so much pray as deprecate; and 
perhaps even the ceremony was one of disenchant- 
ment. For the box was already doomed; it was 
to pass from its green medicine-tree, reverend pre- 
cinct, and devout attendants; to be handled by 


393 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


the profane; to cross three seas; to come to land 
under the foolscap of St. Paul’s; to be domesti- 
cated within hail of Lillie Bridge; there to be 
dusted by the British housemaid, and to take per- 
haps the roar of London for the voice of the outer 
sea along the reef. Before even we had finished 
dinner Chench had begun his journey, and one of 
the newspapers had already placed the box upon 
my table as the gift of Tembinok’. 

I made haste to the palace, thanked the king, 
but offered to restore the box, for I could not bear 
that the sick of the island should be made to suffer. 
I was amazed by his reply. Terutak’, it appeared, 
had still three or four in reserve against an acci- 
dent; and his reluctance, and the dread painted at 
first on every face, was not in the least occasioned 
by the prospect of medical destitution, but by the 
immediate divinity of Chench. How much more 
did I respect the king’s command, which had been 
able to extort in a moment and for nothing a 
sacrilegious favour that I had in vain solicited with 
millions! But now I had a difficult task in front 
of me; it was not in my view that Terutak’ should 
suffer by his virtue; and I must persuade the king 
to share my opinion, to let me enrich one of his 
subjects, and (what was yet more delicate) to pay 
for my present. Nothing shows the king in a 
more becoming light than the fact that I suc- 
ceeded. He demurred at the principle; he ex- 
claimed, when he heard it, at the sum. “ Plenty 
money!” cried he, with contemptuous displeasure. 
But his resistance was never serious; and when 


APEMAMA 399 


he had blown off his ill-humour — “ A’right,”’ said 
he. “ You give him. Mo’ betta.” 

Armed with this permission, I made straight for 
the infirmary. The night was now come, cool, 
dark, and starry. Ona mat, hard by a clear fire 
of wood and cocoa-shell, Terutak’ lay beside his 
wife. Both were smiling; the agony was over, 
the king’s command had reconciled (I must sup- 
pose) their agitating scruples; and I was bidden 
to sit by them and share the circulating pipe. I 
was a little moved myself when I placed five gold 
sovereigns in the wizard’s hand; but there was 
no sign of emotion in Terutak’ as he returned them, 
pointed to the palace, and named Tembinok’. It 
was a changed scene when I had managed to ex- 
plain. ‘“Terutak’, long, dour Scots fisherman as he 
was, expressed his satisfaction within bounds; but 
the wife beamed; and there was an old gentleman 
present —her father, I suppose— who seemed 
nigh translated. His eyes stood out of his head; 
“ Kaupot, Kaupot— rich, rich!” ran on his lips 
like a refrain; and he could not meet my eye but 
what he gurgled into foolish laughter. 

I might now go home, leaving that fire-lit family 
party gloating over their new millions, and con- 
sider my strange day. I had tried and rewarded 
the virtue of Terutak’. I had played the million- 
aire, had behaved abominably, and then in some 
degree repaired my thoughtlessness. And now I 
had my box, and could open it and look within. 
It contained a miniature sleeping-mat and a white 
shell. Tamaiti, interrogated next day as to the 


400 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


shell, explained it was not exactly Chench, but a 
cell, or body, which he would at times inhabit. 
Asked why there was a sleeping-mat, he retorted 
indignantly, “ Why have you mats?” And this 
was the sceptical Tamaiti! But island scepticism 
is never deeper than the lips. 


CHAPTER VII 


THE KING OF APEMAMA 


Fr “HUS all things on the island, even the 
priests of the gods, obey the word of 
Tembinok’. He can give and take, and 

slay, and allay the scruples of the conscientious, 

and do all things (apparently) but interfere in the 
cookery ofaturtle. ‘“ I got power ” is his favourite 
word; it interlards his conversation; the thought 
haunts him and is ever fresh; and when he has 
asked and meditates of foreign countries, he looks 
up with a smile and reminds you, “J got power.” 

Nor is his delight only in the possession, but in 

the exercise. He rejoices in the crooked and vio- 

lent paths of kingship like a strong man to run a 

race, or like an artist in his art. To feel, to use 

his power, to embellish his island and the picture 
of the island life after a private ideal, to milk the 
island vigorously, to extend his singular museum 

— these employ delightfully the sum of his abilities. 

I never saw a man more patently in the right 

trade. 

It would be natural to suppose this monarchy 
inherited intact through generations. And so far 
from that, it is a thing of yesterday. I was already 

26 


402 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


a boy at school while Apemama was yet republican, 
ruled by a noisy council of Old Men, and torn with 
incurable feuds. And Tembinok’ is no Bourbon; 
rather the son of a Napoleon. Of course he is 
well born. No man need aspire high in the isles 
of the Pacific unless his pedigree be long and in 
the upper regions mythical. And our king counts 
cousinship with most of the high families in the 
archipelago, and traces his descent to a shark and 
a heroic woman. Directed by an oracle, she swam 
beyond sight of land to meet her revolting para- 
mour, and received at sea the seed of a predestined 
family. “I think lie,” is the king’s emphatic com- 
mentary; yet he is proud of the legend. From this 
illustrious beginning the fortunes of the race must 
have declined; and Tefikoruti, the grandfather of 
~Tembinok’, was the chief of a village at the north 
end of the island. Kuria and Aranuka were yet 
independent; Apemama itself the arena of devas- 
tating feuds. Through this perturbed period of 
history the figure of Tenkoruti stalks memorable. 
In war he was swift and bloody; several towns 
fell to his spear, and the inhabitants were butchered 
to aman. In civil life his arrogance was unheard 
of. When the council of Old Men was summoned, 
he went to the Speak House, delivered his mind, 
and left without waiting to be answered. Wisdom 
had spoken: let others opine according to their 
folly. He was feared and hated, and this was his 
pleasure. He was no poet; he cared not for arts 
or knowledge. ‘ My gran’patha one thing savvy, 
savvy pight,” observed the king. In some lull! of 


APEMAMA 403 


their own disputes the Old Men of Apemama ad- 
ventured on the conquest of Apemama; and this 
unlicked Caius Marcius was elected general of the 
united troops. Success attended him; the islands 
were reduced, and Tefkoruti returned to his own 
government, glorious and detested. He died about 
1860, in the seventieth year of his age and the full 
odour of unpopularity. He was tall and lean, says 
his grandson, looked extremely old, and “ walked 
all the same young man.”’ The same observer gave 
me a significant detail. The survivors of that 
rough epoch were all defaced with spear-marks; 
there was none on the body of this skilful fighter. 
*“T see old man, no got a spear,” said the king. 
Tenkoruti left two sons, Tembaitake and Tem- 
binatake. Tembaitake, our king’s father, was short, 
middling stout, a poet, a good genealogist, and 
something of a fighter; it seems he took himself 
seriously, and was perhaps ‘scarce conscious that 
he was in all things the creature and nursling of 
his brother. There was no shadow of dispute 
between the pair: the greater man filled with 
alacrity and content the second place; held the 
breach in war, and all the portfolios in the time 
of peace; and, when his brother rated him, listened 
in silence, looking on the ground. Like Tefikorutt, 
he was tall and lean and a swift walker —a rare 
trait in the islands. He possessed every accom- 
plishment. He knew sorcery, he was the best 
genealogist of his day, he was a poet, he could 
dance and make canoes and armour; and the 
famous mast of Apemama, which ran one joint 


4044 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


higher than the mainmast of a full-rigged ship, 
was of his conception and design. But these were 
avocations, and the man’s trade was war. ‘“‘ When 
my uncle go make wa’, he laugh,” said Tembinok’. 
He forbade the use of field fortification, that pro- 
tractor of native hostilities; his men must fight in 
the open, and win or be beaten out of hand; his 
own activity inspired his followers; and the swift- 
ness of his blows beat down, in one lifetime, the 
resistance of three islands. He made his brother 
sovereign, he left his nephew absolute. “‘ My uncle 
make all smooth,” said Tembinok’. “I mo’ king 
than my patha: I got power,” he said, with for- 
midable relish. 

Such is the portrait of the uncle drawn by the 
nephew. I can set beside it another by a different 
artist, who has often—I may say always — de- 
lighted me with his romantic taste in narrative, 
but not always — and I may say not often — per- 
suaded me of his exactitude. I have already denied 
myself the use of so much excellent matter from 
the same source, that I begin to think it time to 
reward good resolution; and his account of Tem- 
binatake agrees so well with the king’s, that it 
may very well be (what I hope it is) the record 
of a fact, and not (what I suspect) the pleasing 
exercise of an imagination more than sailorly. A., 
for so I had perhaps better call him, was walking 
up the island after dusk, when he came on a lighted 
village of some size, was directed to the chief’s 
house, and asked leave to rest and smoke a pipe. 
“You will sit down, and smoke a pipe, and wash, 


APEMAMA 405 


and eat, and sleep,’ replied the chief, ‘and to- 
morrow you will go again.” Food was brought, 
prayers were held (for this was in the brief day 
of Christianity), and the chief himself prayed with 
eloquence and seeming sincerity. All evening A. 
sat and admired the man by the firelight. He was 
six feet high, lean, with the appearance of many 
years, and an extraordinary air of breeding and 
command. “He looked like a man who would 
kill you laughing,” said A., in singular echo of 
one of the king’s expressions. And again: “I 
had been reading the Musketeer books, and he re- 
minded me of Aramis.’”’ Such is the portrait of 
Tembinatake, drawn by an expert romancer. 

We had heard many tales of “my patha”’; 
never a word of my uncle till two days before 
we left. As the time approached for our depart- 
ure Tembinok’ became greatly changed; a softer, 
a more melancholy, and, in particular, a more con- 
fidential man appeared in his stead. To my wife 
he contrived laboriously to explain that though 
he knew he must lose his father in the course of 
nature, he had not minded nor realised it till the 
moment came; and that now he was to lose us 
he repeated the experience. We showed fireworks 
one evening on the terrace. It was a heavy busi- 
ness; the sense of separation was in all our minds, 
and the talk languished. The king was specially 
affected, sat disconsolate on his mat, and often 
sighed. Of a sudden one of the wives stepped 
forth from a cluster, came and kissed him in 
silence, and silently went again. It was just such 


406 IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


a caress as we might give to a disconsolate child, 
and the king received it with a child’s simplicity. 
Presently after we said good-night and withdrew; 
but Tembinok’ detained Mr. Osbourne, patting the 
mat by his side and saying: “Sit down. I feel 
bad, I like talk.’ Osbourne sat down by him. 
“You like some beer?” said he; and one of the 
wives produced a bottle. The king did not. par- 
take, but sat sighing and smoking a meerschaum 
pipe. “I very sorry you go,” he said at last. 
“Miss Stlevens he good man, woman he good 
man, boy he good man; all good man. Woman 
he smart all the same man. My woman” (glanc- 
ing towards his wives) “‘ he good woman, no very 
smart. I think Miss Stlevens he big chiep all the 
same cap’n man-o-wa’. I think Miss Stlevens he 
rich man all the same me. All go schoona. I 
very sorry. My patha he go, my uncle he go, my 
cutcheons he go, Miss Stlevens he go: all go. 
You no see king cry before. King all the same 
man: feel bad, he cry. I very sorry.” 

In the morning it was the common topic in nthe 
village that the king had wept. To me he said: 
“Last night I no can ’peak: too much here,” 
laying his hand upon his bosom. ‘“‘ Now you go 
away all the same my pamily. My brothers, my 
uncle go away. All the same.” This was said 
with a dejection almost passionate. And it was 
the first time I had heard him name his uncle, or 
indeed employ the word. The same day he sent 
me a present of two corselets, made in the island 
fashion of plaited fibre, heavy and strong. One 


APEMAMA 407 


had been worn by Tefikoruti, one by Tembaitake; 
and the gift being gratefully received, he sent me, 
on the return of his messengers, a third — that of 
Tembinatake. My curiosity was roused; I begged 
for information as to the three wearers; and the 
king entered with gusto into the details already 
given. Here was a strange thing, that he should 
have talked so much of his family, and not once 
mentioned that relative of whom he was plainly 
the most proud. Nay, more: he had hitherto 
boasted of his father; thenceforth he had little 
to say of him; and the qualities for which he 
had praised him in the past were now attributed 
where they were due, — to the uncle. A confusion 
might be natural enough among islanders, who 
call all the sons of their grandfather by the com- 
mon name of father. But this was not the case 
with Tembinok’. Now the ice was broken the 
word uncle was perpetually in his mouth; he who 
had been so ready to confound was now careful 
to distinguish; and the father sank gradually into 
a self-complacent ordinary man, while the uncle 
rose to his true stature as the hero and founder of 
the race. 

The more I heard and the more I considered, 
the more this mystery of Tembinok’s behaviour 
puzzled and attracted me. And the explanation, 
when it came, was one to strike the imagination of 
a dramatist. Tembinok’ had two brothers. One, 
detected in private trading, was banished, then for- 
given, lives to this day in the island, and is the 
father of the heir-apparent, Paul. The other fell 


408- IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


beyond forgiveness. I have heard it was a love- 
affair with one of the king’s wives, and the thing 
is highly possible in that romantic archipelago. 
War was attempted to be levied; but Tembinok’ 
was too swift for the rebels, and the guilty brother 
escaped in a canoe. He did not go alone. Tem- 
binatake had a hand in the rebellion, and the man 
who had gained a kingdom for a weakling brother 
was banished by that brother’s son. The fugitives 
came to shore in other islands, but Tembinok’ re- 
mains to this day ignorant of their fate. 

So far history. And now a moment for con- 
jecture. Tembinok’ confused habitually, not only 
the attributes and merits of his father and his 
uncle, but their diverse personal appearance. Be- 
fore he had even spoken, or thought to speak, of 
Tembinatake, he had told me often of a tall, lean 
father, skilled in war, and his own schoolmaster 
in genealogy and island arts. How if both were 
fathers, one natural, one adoptive? How if the 
heir of Tembaitake, like the heir of Tembinok’ 
himself, were not a son, but an adopted nephew? 
How if the founder of the monarchy, while he 
worked for his brother, worked at the same time 
for the child of his loins? How if on the death 
of Tembaitake, the two stronger natures, father 
and son, king and kingmaker, clashed, and Tem- 
binok’, when he drove out his uncle, drove out 
the author of his days? Here is.at least a tragedy 
four-square. 

The king took us on board in his own gig, 
dressed for the occasion in the naval uniform. He 


APEMAMA 409 


had little to say, he refused refreshments, shook us 
briefly by the hand, and went ashore again. That 
night the palm-tops of Apemama had dipped be- 
hind the sea, and the schooner sailed solitary under 
the stars. 








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Whar oot 











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